inFamous: Lost Child
by CharlesAtlasJohnson
Summary: Nicky is young child, one with some unique traits compared to other children. She's intelligent for her age, enjoys problem solving, and is what many call a bio-terrorist. Take a walk into the life of a kid who lives in a world, of which Cole MacGrath has laid waste to the East Coast of the U.S. Now she has to fight to find safety in a world where her kind's hated.(AU) (SYOC open)
1. Chapter 1

Prologue

 ** _[Comic Intro]_**

After the events along the East-Coast of the U.S., hell broke loose for humanity. An explosion occurred in Empire City back in the year 2005, leading to many deaths, and strange changes to those who survived. The survivors had gained strange power from the explosion, being able to absorb and manipulate certain materials. These individuals were referred to as "conduits", being people that acted as a living culvert to a unique material.

One of these survivors was a man by the name of Cole MacGrath. Before the blast, he was a bike messenger, a person of little to no interest. After the blast, he became a power hungry sociopath, killing anyone who stood in his way. He, and many other conduits, took over the city, combining their power in monstrous ways.

After six years, they fled down to New Marais to escape a new threat, an even more powerful conduit that could make other conduits. Only after weeks of them being in New Marais, another explosion occurred, and more conduits were activated. With more and more rising, and many humans dying, people both had fear, and hatred towards conduits. Lynch mobs formed to "take care of these freaks", leading the East Coast to ruin.

With all the paranoia, the formation of the D.U.P., or Department of Unified Protection came to be. This organization made it so that conduits would find themselves inside concrete cells, rather than being lynched. Curdun Cay was their main prison for what they referred to as bio-terrorists. Conduits had gained this name as Cole MacGrath was considered a terrorist, the terrorist who brought on both a plaque of monsters, and disease. These events had brought in a horrific form of biological warfare, one that could destroy humanity.

Over a course of seven years, problems were appearing throughout America. It was thought that to activate a conduit, one would have to kill people in the process. Believed to have been passed around by the plaque, or the explosions of radiation into the atmosphere, many others would become bio-terrorists. The East-Coast was barely contained and sealed off from the rest of the U.S, but these unique beings only kept spreading, and becoming a nuisance to the government.

This is the world I live in, one filled with chaos that never seems to end. I was told most of this by my father, who I love so much. This is my life, in a world that hates me for my difference from other children. My name is Nicky Francine Fisher, and I am a conduit. I don't stand for what Cole MacGrath did, but I won't stand for people like me being attacked for not being like the rest of the crowd. It would seem that history though, will only continue to repeat itself.

Early years of a child truly mold them into the individual they will become in the future. This time allows for them to understand the world around them. Understand how people interact with one another, or with objects. A world full of hatred can allow a child to become corrupt very easily, and Cole MacGrath's rebuttal against humanity did not help the pandemic of paranoia. I am one of few who has not become agressive over the ignorance around her.

I was always a very bright girl everyone said. Always loved to put puzzles together, and figure out problems. When I watched TV, it was changed to either the news to know what was happening around the world, or documentaries on history or animals. By the time I entered 5th grade, World War II was a subject of great interest to me. Sometimes, I compared World War II to current issues. My intellect lead me to higher education, and a chance to go to most colleges in the country. Sadly, Yale and Harvard University were out of the question.

I was happy with my father Jack Samson Fisher, who was a real estate agent. He cared for me, trying to give me what he never had as a child. He would always try to take me out for a jog, believing that if he didn't, he could end up a lazy slob like his mother. He bought books and toys of all kinds for to use and play with, I used to build all kinds of neat stuff with those. Jack even took me down to the San Diego Zoo that I wanted to see. It sucked there, but I'm just glad I was there with father.

While that man made life all the while, I never enjoyed being around that woman he was going to marry. Elizabeth Homer, a fast food restaurant manager who everyone thought to be a wonderful, hard working woman. I knew better, her smile was always fake, she never tried to do anything at her place of work, and never showed any real kindness to me. She did nothing but complain about how ruff she appearantly had it. She tried to do things to me too, awful things, when my father wasn't around. I don't know why she performed such actions on me, but I wish she just didn't push me too far.

* * *

Part 1: Loss of Inoccence

Elizabeth had cornered the child in a room, grabbed onto Nicky's shirt, trying to force her to come close before saying, "Quite struggling. I always get what I want. You gotta understand that."

Nicky kept kicking back at the woman, screaming, "STOP! I DON'T LIKE THIS!"

Nearly ripping Nicky's shirt off, tearing the middle, Elizabeth forced the child up to her and covered her mouth with the other hand. "Understand Nicky, your father loves me, and I love him. I also love children a lot. How small they are, how innocent, so..."

"LET GO OF ME, YOU STUPID MONSTER!"

After screaming those words, she hit Elizabeth in the face. Unfortunately, this only made the disgusting adult angry, and Nicky ended up getting hit across the floor. Young Nicky tried to move away from her, but Elizabeth wasn't done. She grabbed the kid's ankle, dragging her back. In that split second though, Nicky felt a strange feeling around her body. She felt every bone in her body like she was rubbing them with her hands. She also felt the bones in the arm of the woman grabbing her. She felt the very shape of Elizabeth's humerus, radius and ulna, and imagined them being grabbed by two hands, and snapping.

A huge crunch and snapping sound comes from Elizabeth's arm, right before...

"AHHHH...! OH MY GOD! YOU DAMN LITTLE BITCH!", she screamed at Nicky.

Elizabeth tried to grab at Nicky again, to which the child said tearfully, "Stay away from me."

As Elizabeth got close, Nicky felt her bones again, and some how pushed her back. The woman was forced against a dresser, unable to move, due to an unseen force from the child. Little Nicky thought to herself, "I have telekinesis?" , and tried to move other objects.

Sadly though, she did not feel the resistance, or anything remotely the same as with the bones when she tried to knock down objects on top of the dresser. She wanted to make it look like an accident. Then a pair of ideas flashed in her mind. Nicky thought to herself, "There's no way father would forgive me for something like this, not with his views on bio-terrorists. I might just be able to kill Elizabeth right here and now, by crushing that small cranium of hers. The stupid woman most likely had it coming, but then again I don't believe myself to be the killing type. I'd rather knock her out, and just duck out. Either way, I need to get out of here, and fast."

 **L2 Walk Away**

Knock out Elizabeth and leave.

 **R2 Finish 'er Off**

Kill Elizabeth for what she did.

* * *

 **Hey everyone, CAJ here. I hope you all enjoyed the start to my fan fiction, it the first that I've ever posted. For those of you who have played any of the inFamous games, you'll recognize the choice selection at the bottom of the story. Please do the three R's, Rate, Review, and Roll along with (or follow) me to see where this story goes. Please put your suggestion on Nicky's decision in your review, and I will tally the results. See you all around, CAJ out!**


	2. Chapter 2

inFamous: Lost Child

 **L2 Walk Away** Selected

 **Karma Rank Change to:** Bright Runaway

The choices Nicky makes will decide events within this story, whether they are good, evil, or passive.

(So choose wisely.)

* * *

Nicky stared at Elizabeth, looking at the helpless expression on her face. The young girl liked her position over the woman, but felt that this would make her like the monster she feared. Nicky walked a bit closer to her father's fiancé, and told her with tears, "I hope you understand now, not everyone gets what they want. I wanted a mother, but I got you instead." Young Nicky then pushed her hand towards Elizabeth, and her head was hit hard against the dresser she was in front of, knocking her out cold.

The sound of someone running up the stairs came to her ears. Nicky knew it was… "Father." She darted towards her window, which had a view of the streets below. Her father, Jack, burst through the door, looking at a bruised Nicky.

He asked, "Nicky, what hap…pen…?" Jack stared at her torn clothes, then towards Elizabeth, who was laid unconscious against the dresser. He stared back at Nicky, nervously asking, "Nichole, did you… do that?" While Jack remained in shock for a second, his daughter quickly opened her window and hopped out. He started running towards the window yelling, "Nichole, no! Come back!" No amount of yelling would change this kid's mind though now. Her father always seemed to be one against bio-terrorists, always describing them as freaks, monsters that should be locked in cages. Nicky loved her father, and trusted him with a lot, but did not want to risk being caught by the D.U.P and getting locked up. She had to be on her own now, in the world she has studied, but never truly experienced.

* * *

The cold during the winter months are very cold in Nicky's home town. So before it got real dark in Yakima Washington, she decided to find a shop to take some things from. A shop her father took her to, called Ball Cart, had everything she needed. It was a chain of department stores that had most items one could need, assuming they had plenty of money to spare. She walked in through the front, to which a man greeted, "Hello, welcome to Ball Cart. Are your parents inside?"

The ten year old got nervous for a second before replying with, "Yes, my mom went inside a little bit ago. She's getting me… a new jacket."

The greeter gave her a big sarcastic smile, before saying, "Ok then, I hope she gets you one soon. Yakima isn't exactly like my old home in St. George. You're gonna catch a cold out here tonight, so hurry on in."

"Ok." she said before walking through the store's second doors. She moved quickly when she got out of the sight of the greeter. Nicky headed towards the children's clothing area, and put on a pair of sweats on the jeans she was wearing, and then a hoodie and fleece on top of her t-shirt. Before anyone started to take notice of the little crook, she stuffed the jacket pockets with a compass, a map, a flashlight, and a bunch of random snacks.

After her little thieving spree, she went over by the exit. It was now perfect for her to leave with the doors being crowded by a bunch of people just leaving the checkout area. Nicky walked next to a white woman with her son in the cart, and stayed close enough to look like she went in with the woman. Right when the scanners went off at the front door, the greeter stopped the woman to check her items. Nicky on the other hand, got out Scott Free. She looked at the compass she grabbed out her map and compass, and decided to start heading towards the northwest.

* * *

She followed the U.S. 12 highway, walking for a few hours, before she got tired near Gleed. She decided to sleep for the night in one of the trees by the Naches River. Nicky cried herself to sleep, thinking of the life she had just left. The young conduit started to have a nightmare, of that woman finding her, trying to rip her clothes apart. After only minutes of sleep, she woke up in fright. Nicky tried to calm herself down for the moment being, then she heard something below her.

Someone was walking down below her. A white man with a hoodie and a large backpack walked over to the side of the river. When stopped by the river, he put his bag down in front of him, and unzipped it. He pulled out what looked like a big rock or crystal, with a bright purple glow. "What is that?" Nicky said to herself. She quietly got down from the tree, and tried to sneak up to get a closer look.

"Huh? Who's there?!" the man asked as he turned around. He saw Nicky froze for a second, and then said, "Wait, you're a conduit too?"

Nicky had a rather confused look on her face before she asked, "What?"

The man then put the rock back in his bag, and turned back to Nicky to say, "I can sense other conduits when they're close enough to me. I didn't think they got as young as you."

"Other conduits? What kind of conduit are you?"

"I'm what some might call an amplifier of conduits. I can drain certain forms of energy, and help other conduits get a boost. You also must be really new to this conduit game as well, 'cause most conduit can sense one another, along with sources for their powers."

"I can do that?"

"If you really are a conduit. You just have to focus real hard, and try to feel everything around you."

The young girl closed her eyes, and tried to focus on the area around her. She tried to feel the presence of both the man in front of her, and the rock behind him. Sadly for her, it did not work. "Uh…?"

"Didn't work, huh?"

"No, not really?"

"Well some conduits are different. Anyway, I need to either leave, or watch me as I do my business here."

"What kind of business is that in your bag?"

"Some shit you don't really need to worry about?! It's something I borrowed from someone. You can stay and watch if you want, but you have to watch over me when I fall asleep."

"You're going to sleep after this? And I have to watch?"

"Yes, and if you wanna. I gotta drain this blast core to gain more power."

"That's what that's called? A blast core? Is that like a fragment of rayacite that I heard about?"

"Huh… oh yeah, yeah. That's sorta what it is, only it has quite a kick to it. A conduit that uses this can get new powers from it."

Nicky got a little jumpy and said, "Really? Is it possible to share one, maybe?"

"Hmm,… I guess I could share the one I have, you seem like you might need some energy since you're powers are still developing. And it's not like you can run off with it and use it, since I am one of the few conduits who can activate the blast core."

"So I can have some of it? What's your price?"

"Well, I guess if I'm sharing this, then you'll have to follow along with me for a while. Or at least til them damn dup guys get me."

"I guess that's… fair."

"Alright then."

The man turned back to his bag, and grabbed out the blast core. He walked up to her, and said, "Name's Jacob by the way. What's yours little cutie?"

That comment creeped her out a little, but she sucked it up and said, "Nicky."

"Ok Nicky, just put your hand on the pretty rock, and…", he paused to let the young conduit put her hand on the blast core. When Nicky did, he continued with, "…CHEERS!"

* * *

 _ **[Comic Scene]**_

He put a surge of electromagnetic energy through the blast core, and then a burst of energy went through the two of us. Both of us started to lift into the air after the blast core blew up. An orange aura formed around me, with strange looking dust starting to form into my skin. I tried my best not to freak out, but I couldn't help screaming as the power inside started to hurt. All of the sudden, it just went black…

 ** _[To be continued…]_**

* * *

 **Hey, CAJ is back, just hope you are taking a liking to this story. Sorry that it's a short update after one week. Anyway, it's interesting that so far I've only gotten "L2" in my reviews so far. Also, there won't be another "Karmic" decision for another entry or two, but don't worry, it's not too far away. Also, if anyone's interested, you can send in original character concepts (via Private Message/Review), whether human or Conduit, just follow the little formula below:**

 **Name: (Original:)**

 **Optional: (Conduit/Nick Name: Such as the "Electric Man" or "Banner Man")**

 **Gender: (Please just male or female)**

 **Humanoid Appearance: (Skin tone, eye color, hair style and color, description of scars and amputations if any)**

 **Attire: (Color, condition of clothing, kind of clothing, shoes, armor that isn't too comic book like)**

 **Date of Birth/Age: (At least young enough to have been born in the 20** **th** **century.)**

 **Conduit Gene: (Positive/Negative)**

 **Conduit Abilities: (If human, ignore; If Conduit, describe powers in detail, and please make an original power that has not been used in any inFamous installment, or currently within this story if they are a "Prime Conduit". If not possible, give reasons onto how they have the powers of one of the other inFamous characters.)**

 **(As a side note, used powers include: Lightning, Tar, Metal, Napalm/Fire, Ice, Ray Sphere, Smoke, Neon, Video, Concrete, Paper, Glass, Wire, and Conduit Sponge; unique powers included in this story will be: Bone, Wood, Amplifier/Conduit Battery, Flesh and Toxicity/Gases)**

 **Occupation: (Job and position, level of current education if in school, runaway, or can be a current inmate at Curdun Cay Station)**

 **Family/Legal Guardians: (Any family that you might want them to mention.)**

 **Any Extra Info: (Spare no details on this crazy cat of a character you're sending.)**

 **That's all guys and gals, see ya 'round.**


	3. Chapter 3

inFamous: Lost Child

 _ **[Nicky Comic Scene]**_

 **...and I woke up sometime later, feeling restrained. I could barely see, feeling very dazed from whatever that man did to me. Looking around, I noticed that I was brought into someone's house. Still dazed, I see Jacob with his hands suspended from the ceiling. He was being beaten by another man smaller in height, but built like a tank. I watched as this man grabbed a hold of Jacob,... and ripped flesh from his body. What kind of man would do such a disgusting thing?!**

* * *

The young conduit had found herself in a small cabin, with her hands bound together behind her back. Seeing what had just happened to Jacob right in front of her, Nicky's eyes opened real wide, and she started to scream. The skin and flesh started tearing off from Jacob's very bones, and fused with the skin on the other man. There was no doubt that he was another conduit, a flesh eating conduit. After finishing off Jacob, the man appeared to have gotten stronger, muscles and veins tensing up all over. He wore nothing but khaki shorts, and a wife beater to show off his strength.

Nicky began to cry, being traumatized by this whole situation. The flesh eater heard her crying, and decided to walk up to Nicky, and try to talk with her. The young girl moved back a little from her spot in the cabin, so the "cannibal conduit" decided to stop a few feet from her and said, "You must be terrified after what you saw dere, ah kid?"

Nicky noticed a slight accent, but wasn't surprised by it noticing the man seemed to bear a likeness to those in documentaries on gangsters she had seen. She said to the man, "What did you have against him? Why did you leave only his skeleton?"

The man smiled before saying, "'Cause I was hungry, and that asshole owed me! He owed me shit like dat rock you two ate!" Nicky became very nervous after hearing about him seeing that. "Yeah, that's right. I saw you and the creepy puto by the Naches, and I saw what happened after you two ate it."

The female conduit was confused when he said 'after'. What did the flesh eater mean by that? "What do you m-mean?"

"About the rock? Or you talkin' about the aftermath?

"What happened after what me and... h-him consumed the blast core?"

"Wouldn't you like to know? Well I wanted to know a lot of shit from that bitch over there, but Green River killer", he yelled as he pointed towards Jacob, "over there didn't tell me shit!"

The yelling made Nicky cry even more. "What are you talking about?"

"You know what, I don't know why the hell I'm talking to a damn kid. You smart, I gotta say that. But you aren't ready for this world kid, seen too much. So I'll make this easy for you."

"Huh…?"

Before she could say anything else, the flesh eater ran towards her, and struck Nicky on the back of the neck. This would kill a human being, but that rule does not apply to a conduit. For most conduits, it would just merely knock them out due to their healing factor. Seeing her drop flat to the ground, the cannibal conduit walked away from Nicky, and punched the remains of Jacob, (which consisted of just bits of tendons keeping most of the skeleton together). He walked outside of the cabin to go and grab something, most likely a bag or blanket to hide Nicky somewhere.

"Don't give up, young conduit.", said a strange voice in Nicky's head. "Don't give up. You are strong, and will be able to overcome obstacles that stand in your way. Unleash your power, show your strength, not your weakness."

After taking a second to think to herself whether that voice was a delusion, Nicky opened her eyes. Energy inside of her body started to flow through her bloodstream. Her eyes began to glow a bright orange, like a pair of flashlights. She closed her eyes, and tried to focus on the area around her. Focusing hard enough, she emitted a small pulse around her that acted like a bat's echolocation. She could sense almost everything around her, like the electricity flowing through the equipment in the cabin, the remains of Jacob, and the conduit outside of the cabin. It was like Jacob described, being able to detect everything around you.

Nicky decided to draw her focus towards the remains of the fallen conduit, and tried to lift it. She struggled, and struggled to move the left over skeleton, but the resistance was too much. She felt drained, almost like a strong thirst. For some strange reason, she felt drawn to a heater nearby her. Almost involuntarily, she pushes herself towards the heater, and tries to put her back towards it so her hands could get close. "Why am I doing this?" she said to herself.

Her hands got close to the heating element, and she felt herself get electrocuted. It didn't feel painful though, but rather felt like a cool glass of water on a hot day. Nicky somehow was energized by the heater, and felt a whole lot stronger. "How did I do that? How am I not hurt?" After questioning the logic of her surviving enough electricity to make the heater cool down. Feeling up to the challenge, she closed her eyes, and focused on the skeleton. Nicky felt a weird sensation, almost like her body was just a shell, and she was leaving it. She then felt all the bones of the skeleton, from the distal phalanges of the toes, to the cranium. As Nicky got more in tune with the remains, she eventually got it to stand up. It was a standing skeleton, like in a horror film, looking like it was about to grab its next victim. She almost felt as if she was the skeleton for a second, before realizing that she needed to find a way to free her actual body. With barely any control of the skeleton, she made it walk towards her. Walking the skeleton felt like heavy weights on the legs, so it was difficult to move the skeleton too much. Eventually, she got it to come up to her, and try to rip apart the binds on her hands.

Before she could start, the cannibal conduit walked in through the door. He stopped in shock, noticing the remains of a man he just killed moving around. "What? No way in hell. No way in HELL you're doing that puto!" he said to the skeleton. Nicky made the skeleton turn around towards the flesh eater, to which he charged towards the skeleton. "I killed you, God forsaken bitch!" Yelling at the skeleton, he threw punches towards its ribcage and head. Nicky tried to have the skeleton fight back, but she couldn't fully control it, nor did she know how to fight. "I'm not letting you do something like that again!" the cannibal conduit yelled before grabbing a hold of the skeleton, and absorbing every last bit of flesh on him. The bones of the skeleton scattered around the floor as each tendon lost its grip.

After finishing off the skeleton, he looked at where the girl was, but saw nothing but the bindings he put on her. Anger started boiling inside him, before he turned around to see…"How the hell…?" The skeleton was standing again, this time with no meat on any of the bones, orange and bone colored dust surrounding it, and appearing to be a lot bigger. The skeleton grabbed the man who was mesmerized by his neck, and held him up.

Barely able to push out words, the cannibal conduit says, "So,... it was you… little girl…?"

Nicky had, in the heat of the moment, found another way to harness her powers. Now she was able to form into a big skeleton to defend herself. Now, she had control of the situation. The thought of killing him after consuming Jacob came to her mind, but did she really know Jacob. Nicky thought of just leaving now like she did before with Elizabeth, but this one might harm another too. She also noticed that the man had brought a blast core into the room, and thought, maybe she could try that same thing with the flesh conduit. She knew that the ability to absorb energy from the electric heater came from Jacob, what could she get if she shared it with this conduit. Though, she would likely be vulnerable if someone were to get a hold of her while sleeping off the effects of the blast core. What could she do?

* * *

 **Triangle: Toss Him**

Leave the flesh eater to rot in pain.

 **Square: Rotten Core**

Make the flesh eater share a Blast Core with you.

 **Circle: Avenge Jacob**

Kill the flesh eater for what he did.

* * *

 **Hey everyone, sorry about the crappy timing on the update, lost my original file for this part 'cause of my tablet not saving correctly. I promised you all I would have a Karmic choice sooner or later, so here we are. Hopefully in the future I'll have better timing for updating this story, but in the mean time, please send in your thoughts on Nicky's next choice, (and be careful what you pick), and maybe submit a character. I'm willing to take in about any human and conduit ideas, and it doesn't matter whose side they're on. Also, look out later for entries including some of your favorite inFamous characters, like Cole MacGrath, Delsin Rowe, and Fetch. 'Til next time everybody, PEACE!**


	4. Chapter 4

****Triangle Toss Him**** **Selected**

 ** **Karma Rank:**** **(Still)** ** **Bright Runaway****

 ** **Achievement: "Flesh and Blood...(are the choses you missed)"****

* * *

With the flesh eater in hand, Nicky thought of Elizabeth again. Even for what that woman did, she let her live, with a good bump to the head. Before performing any action to the man in her grasp, Nicky heard him push out, "Go head,... kill me. Be better… than what… he did to… them…"

Nicky thought of it, but did not choose to kill the man. Instead, she threw him into a wall, where he would end up falling onto his side. Nicky in this new skeleton form walked up to the other conduit, and said in a slightly deeper voice, "I'm not going to kill you. Asking someone to put you out of your misery is both selfish, and nauseating. I'm no murderer, in case you haven't noticed, and I won't start today."

The cannibal conduit lifted his head to sit against the wall in pain. He gasped for air, and replied to Nicky with, "Sorry, but I guess I just have the mindset that this is how it would play out."

"What are you talking about, you suicidal moron?"

"Well… the man, whose bones you usin', used to be a friend of mine."

"Then he took something from you?"

"Yeah, he…" he stopped to gasp for more air.

"Well then, what did he take?"

"He took my family away!"

Nicky hadn't really known Jacob, so it wouldn't be a surprise that she had met a sociopath. Considering the fact that this man in front of her wasn't much of a threat to her now, she decided to question him and listen for the moment. She asked, "What exactly happened?"

The flesh eater replied with, "Alright, I'll tell you kid. He was a friend of mine, the white boy. Been since we was little. The foo came to me one night saying the police were after 'im. When I was looking the other way, he killed my wife." Tears started to drip down from his eyes to his chin. "She was two months from delivering our child! Turned out the cops chasing him 'cause he killed his moma, and went loco! Damn insane puto!"

The young female felt chills up and down her spine as she heard the story. She said to the man, "I'm sorry to hear all this. I didn't realize that…"

"Don't feel sorry for me kid, I went just about as insane. These powers, they can influence all kinds of nasty shit in people's minds."

"Well, I guess I'm smarter then."

"Huh? What are you talking about kid?"

Nicky walked up to the flesh eater and said, "I never let my powers influence my decisions, I only thought of what would be the right thing to do. You're not the first person who could have been killed by me."

The flesh eater took a deep breath, and got up to his feet. He said to Nicky, "Well, I'm sorry you had to be in this kind of crazy stuff kid. If you were my daughter… I…"

He started to cry again, and turned around to hit his head and right fist against the wall. The young conduit couldn't help but join in on the crying, being only a child. Tears did not form on the conduits face while in her skeleton form. Nicky took note of that before she said, "It's ok. Your family would have wanted you to live on, just not like this. But I do understand…"

"No it's not ok. I was gonna try an' throw you out there for the cops or D.U.P to find. I'm just a damn…! You know what?" He stopped crying and turned around to tell Nicky, "You should take this blast core."

As the man walked away from the wall towards the blast core on the floor, Nicky looked towards him in confusion. "What? Aren't those hard to find with the D.U.P around?"

He grabbed it and put it in Nicky's boney hands. "Just take it. Take the others while you're at it."

"Others? Wha… What has gotten into you all of the sudden?"

"Well, ya let me live, and I just felt something snap in my head. Either you gave me a concussion, or you helped me see what I gotta. Either way, the others are in my trunk outside. I would say to get a jacket, but you don't even have skin."

"Ok then, I this is goodbye."

"Hope if we see each other again, it won't be like dis was."

Nicky ran out the door without hesitation, and slammed the door behind her with the blast core in hand. The situation was very strange, how did that man become so nice that he gave up his blast cores? The very things that make conduits powerful with every use of one. Either way, she remembered that he said inside his trunk was the rest of the blast cores. The man left his trunk to his black van wide open like a moron for any blind person to stumble into it. Inside was the backpack Jacob had, only filled with three other blast cores.

Not sure on whether to have a feeling of accomplishment or terror, the bone conduit ran through the woods to get away from the cabin. After a little while of running, she noticed that she did not feel the slightest bit cold, nor did she feel anything at all. Nicky got scared at the thought of staying in this skeleton form, and never being able to change back. She wouldn't be able to go in public without causing a scene, and bringing the authorities attention towards her. She would be nothing but a freak for her whole life if she couldn't control her powers. She thought about it long and hard, trying to figure out a way for her to change back, but then Nicky remembered, she had to run still. That, or else if the D.U.P caught the other conduit, she would be next if she didn't get far enough. While she thought of her next move, there were others planning there's on the other side of the country.

* * *

 _ **[Switch to Empire City]**_

The city where it all began those years ago. Empire City, now exists as a wasteland, and the playground of the worst conduits on the East-Coast. A land where power and strength really matter if you want to survive. The weak are treated slaves if they can't find a way out of the this god forsaken place. The city is now ruled by three powerful gangs, the Reapers, the Dust Men, and the Frost Giants. Each gang is led by a powerful conduit, who of which are all led by an even more deadly conduit.

On the top of a tower made out of scraps of metal, are three of the worst conduits to have ever lived. One was a female in her thirties, wearing a tank top and black pants under ice formed as armor on her body. Alongside her in a wheelchair was an old man, who wore a tan colored cloak over dirty clothes, and had legs that were replaced with metal scraps molded into prosthetics. Both were talking with their leader, a very pale male wearing a dirty black jacket and pants. The woman said, "Cole, why aren't we making our move yet?"

The old man said to her, "Patience, damn it?! You know what happened last time we tried to attack their base in Michigan!"

"We're prepared this time, we have more than enough conduit soldiers at our disposal! And I can't quite understand why we have stayed dormant for the past few years!"

The pale man in black formed an angry look on his face, with red and black electricity flowing through his arms. He stared directly at the woman and said. "Kuo, I've told you already, we have to wait for her return. Once she's has gotten enough intel, and brings back some more lost conduits, we'll be able to attack the entire North side of the United States, without any major losses like the time we attacked."

The old man in the wheelchair moved close to Cole, and said, "We'll find that bastard who attacked us. My scouts are hot on his trail, and I've been told he is nearby Las Vegas, in the desert."

"Good, maybe I'll show him a few of my new tricks that I've developed over the years. Now Kuo, have some of your Frost giants the ocean coast. We don't need any more Navy assholes trying to annoy us at the moment."

"Yes Cole." the woman said before she turned to the edge of the building, and changing into a cloud of ice and snow that flew away.

"Now just to wait another god damn eternity,... for her to arrive."

* * *

 **CAJ again, hope you guys like the update to the story. I haven't put in any OC's submitted to me yet, but they're comin'. Short I know, just wish I had more time on my hands. Next one will come out this Sunday, so until then, do the three R's, submit a character, and Peace!**


	5. Chapter 5

**_"You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment if you don't trust enough."_**

 ** _-Frank Crane_**

* * *

It had been two nights since her confrontation with the flesh conduit. Nicky wondered about her choice to let that man live, as she wandered through the forests. She forgot to grab her maps or any real supplies, so the child did not realize that she was just North of the Mount Rainier National Park. The worst part for her was that she still maintained the skeletal form, and could not figure out how to do anything with her powers. Nicky needed some guidance for conduit life, but most everyone would capture and kill one if given the chance.

As she kept walking, feeling drained from there being no source of energy around, Nicky stepped on a random twig. It made a loud enough sound for any animal to hear. She heard a few foot steps, before, "What was that?" which was said in a deep and feminine voice.

Nicky hid by a tree to escape any unneeded fighting. This would likely not end well for her since that person she heard was not alone.

"It better not be one of those Dup foos again. I might just lose control, and snap someone's neck." another person said in a slightly higher, but rougher voice.

"You should really calm down, you know how crazy he went on us when ya caused that explosion in Vancouver."

"Oh yeah, the Vantucky fire you never shut the hell up about."

"How can I? You nearly killed 3 people by scrapping the ground near gasoline."

"It wasn't that bad."

"You blew up a gas station, and burned an entire field of grass!"

The two of them kept arguing with one another, so without hesitation, she started to tiptoe away from the tree. Nicky moved a few feet away, looking behind to see a slightly brown man, wearing a baseball cap, a plaid shirt, and cut up, light jeans. Along with him, a black teenager in a black hoody, wearing a beanie and dark jeans. She was smart to keep quiet as she moved, but she did not think to turn her head back to see what was in front of her.

"What are you doing out in the middle of the woods for, kid?" a man said with a deep voice.

She turned her head to see a pale man with an Ivy League cut right above a pair of shades. If it weren't for those features, his jacket would have made him look like a hobo. The young girl looked at him and said, "How… how do you know… I…?"

"Because the way you're moving, because I sense a conduit that isn't seven foot five, and as of now, your voice is very light."

"Huh?"

"Obviously, unlike me, you don't have much experience with the outside world, do you? Let alone, experience with your powers?" the man said as he turned his face from a lit fire towards the conduit child.

"I... "

"There it is! I thought I heard something… holy shit look at that thing!"

Nicky turned her head around to see the she walked away from looking straight at her.

"Yeah that's scary looking. At least you didn't completely screw up and get our buddy killed." said the man in the plaid shirt.

"Screw off! Hey Mike, what should we do with this weird, skeleton… thing?" said the teen in the hoody.

The man got up, looked towards the two guys, then back at Nicky. He walked up to her with a slight look of suspicion. Looking up towards the skull, he quietly asked her, "Tell me kid, have you ever killed anyone, or tried to use your powers to steal from people?"

She felt uneasy, but like always, she sucked it up and cooperated. "No, I never killed anyone, and everything I have was given to me."

"Really? Tell me kid, how did you end up this way?"

Remembering what happened made her start shaking a little. "I… would prefer not to talk about it. Please."

"That bad of a story? Well I'm sorry for all you had to experience kid. I didn't have much when I grew up, and it got only worse for me year after year. But I can keep that from happening to you. You sound like a good kid, so if you choose, you can hang around me and my friends here. We'll help you learn to control your powers."

Nicky looked down at the ground, then nervously towards the other two. Both looked ready to beat up someone. She said, "I don't know." before turning back towards the man.

"Don't worry about those two. They're a pain in the ass at first, but you'll learn to love 'em."

"I just don't know if I should. I feel like more of a burden than help to you."

"Kid, you don't know how it is to feel like a burden. You are no burden, but you seem like a child living with some. I wanna help you kid."

"What do you want us to do?!" the teenager yelled to interrupt the quiet conversation.

The man talking with Nicky turned towards the teen and glared. The teen then glared back, and just sat down against a tree. With that out of the way, he continued to talk with the young conduit.

"Like I said, pain in the ass. You'll see the lovable side though, assuming you'll hang around with us."

"I don't know, I've been told not to hang around random groups of men."

"Yeah, I guess that works for this situation, since we obviously look like stalker molesters with PLAID SHIRT AND HOODY OVER THERE!"

"WHAT DID WE DO?!" said the two outside of the conversation.

"Seriously though kid, if you stick around, we can and will help you."

Nicky thought to herself, thinking of the people she trusted in the past. Thinking of that man from the cabin, how she let him go, and how he let her go with the blast cores. It was odd, but she decided that maybe, she should have some faith in people. She wouldn't be able to make it out on her own, not with people likely to rat her out, other conduits attacking everywhere, and D.U.P soldiers waiting around for any "bio-terrorists" to capture. Nicky said, "Yes, I'll… stay with you."

"Well great then. Glad you wanna stick around kid."

Nicky wasn't sure how to feel about this situation. She felt abandoned by her father, and attacked by just about every other adult she's met. At least for now, the young one might get a little rest, and maybe some training that wouldn't be found in any "Conduits For Morons" book. As she got to meet up with these other conduits in the middle of the woods, another, even more powerful conduit, was meeting someone. Someone more… sinister.

* * *

 _ **[Switch to Curdan Cay Station]**_

A woman in a dark blue trench coat sits in a dark room with a man in a black suit. The woman sits upward, and says, "Thank you for joining us today."

"Thank you for allowing me to see what I am funding. It's good to know that whatever money I had left with me is going towards a good cause." said the man.

"Yes, well, thanks to your funding, we were able to start up Curdan Cay Station. We've captured nearly three-hundred conduits without the need for use of lethal force."

"Why not lethal force? It's always fun to be a little ruff with the new inmates. Anyway though, that isn't what I came in here for."

"What is it that you need sir?"

"I came in because I was hearing of a "bio-terrorist" in Seattle and Olympia. I'm wondering if my good investment is still capable of what it claims, and will take care of the situation."

"We have control of the situation. We know that the conduit in Seattle is a girl named Abigail Walker. Early 20s, and has been involved with the local drug dealers. Men have been sent in to her current location. In Olympia, we have Richard Knight, who used to work at a local food stand in the area. Now he's on the run, and headed towards a trap."

"You act as if their capture is inevitable."

"You don't believe us to be capable of…?"

"I'm referring to the incident back in Michigan. You and your toy soldiers had no idea what you were up against. What Cole Macgrath was capable of after the New Marais explosion. Whoever that kid was that got in the middle, you mine as well thank him for saving your sorry ass."

The man began to smile a little in the shadows, while the woman began to sneer angrily. She calmed herself before saying, "We were unprepared at the time, but some of our sources have gained information on technology to combat the rising bio-terrorist infestation."

"Technology? Along the lines of my good old friend Doctor Wolfe I suppose?"

"Yes, and much more. If Moya can help dig deeper into the NSA's Intel on the First Sons, we can build another device to kill Cole MacGrath."

"Then the rest of the bio-terrorists would run around like chickens with their heads cut off. Genius Ms. Augustine, genius. Now I remember why I funded your little parade of rock heads you call… the D.U.P."

The two continued to talk for some time. Eventually, they left the room. The man to his helicopter transport outside, and the woman to the surveillance room that covered the drone camera feed. One screen showed a young man running through a town, trying to escape the D.U.P chasing him. Right below the screen, it read:

Model #: 24

Current location: Olympia, WA

* * *

 **Hello everyone, CAJ is back. Sorry my update is taking forever, I was hoping to have two already in by now. Either way, just hoping you all like the new entry to my story. Looks like Nicky is making new friends, and likely to meet more in the near future. That is, considering the fact that she's in a forest just East of Olympia. If you couldn't tell already, you should know by now that Cole, Lucy, Alden, and Augustine are going to be involved. Going to have a huge cross of paths in the future, secrets revealed, and etcetera, etcetera. 'Til the next entry, CAJ out. PEACE!**


	6. Chapter 6

" _ **The challenge that is already with us is the temptation to accept as true freedom what in reality is only a new form of slavery."**_

 _ **-Pope John Paul II**_

* * *

Olympia, capital of Washington state. A home to many people, especially those of the hippie breed. Of all the cities along the West Coast of the U.S, it is one of the few that has not been taken over by the D.U.P. The mayor of decided that there would be no need for such "brutality" to come in, despite every threat he's received. Threats from both citizens and politicians alike. Though now, he just may have this decision turned against him.

Along another gloomy day, with snow just barely starting to show. When it's cold out, and you're about, for food you should go one way. That way, would be the "Wong Way".

"Welcome to Wong Way Miss, what can I get started for you?" says a young man working in a food truck.

"I'll take three orders of egg rolls. Along with that, some stir-fry noodles, pork fried rice, and some… nihhhhhhge…?"

"Nigiri?"

"Oh, yes. That, yes. I almost said something…"

"It's alright Miss, not the first time someone has called it that."

The young man tallied up the prices onto the register, and finished writing up a ticket for the woman's order.

"About how long will that take?"

"Around fifteen minutes."

"Ok, thank you."

"Alright, your total comes to thirty-two, forty."

The woman handed over her credit card, so he could run it through. Then the guy had his customer sign a tablet using her finger. After she finished signing, the tablet was set onto a counter inside the food cart.

"Your order will be ready soon."

"Ok, thank you. I'm sure you get asked this a lot, but is the title supposed to mean 'One Way', or 'Wrong Way'?"

"Oh, no. It's just named after the owner's dad."

"Oh."

As the woman walked away, the man then reported the order to everyone else inside the food cart. After doing so, he came back to the counter to see two D.U.P soldiers walking by. He got nervous, and pretended he was cleaning the front counter, right before he was called to work.

"Hey dumbass! Get those egg rolls dropped now!" his boss told him.

"Ok sir." the man replied back.

After dealing with the current customer, the radio that was playing current (and worn out) pop and hip-hop music was changed to a different station.

"I wonder if any of those bio-terrorists have come near, I heard something about an attack the other day." said the boss.

Radio static started to sound off as the station was changing. Eventually, it was stopped onto a news station.

"...on FM news one-oh-two-point-one, traffic is looking real horrible today. A crash over on Southeast 14th Avenue has left three cars totalled, and eight injured. The crash has blocked off the entrances and exits onto I - five, and it almost makes you glad the major didn't have D.U.P forces station here. Otherwise we'd have more road blocks, and no one would be getting to work. Don't know about you Tim, but I wouldn't be here right now if that were the case." The man on the radio allowed another reporter to speak. Everyone in the cart listened as they cleaned up.

"Well Rob, I'm not sure I could get past Dup roadblocks after some already heavy traffic. I can at least get maybe halfway through before work starts, but sadly for a Yakima resident, she wouldn't be able to make it to the first stop light. Ya see, A few days ago, a woman by the name of Elizabeth Homer was attacked by a bio-terrorist." said the other reporter.

"Holy crap! I'm surprised she made it through that alive, Tim!"

"Yeah, ya see, the bio-terrorist that attacked her apparently used it's powers to break her arm, and throw her against a dresser."

"Like what? Some kind of weird telekinesis, or something like that?"

"No one knows at the moment. Even the doctors are baffled. To add insult to the injury, on top of her being stuck in the hospital, her fiance bailed out on her. Reporters were all over him when his fiance was taken to the hospital, and it was found on that same day that his daughter had gone missing."

"Wow, quite a cluster of mayhem they've got."

After a bit, the man working the front of the cart started to ignore the radio.

* * *

When work hours were over, he got into his green hoodie, grabbed a bag on the counter, and left to go back to the dirty apartment he called home. The man thought to himself about the news report, and how so many conduits are attacking people, or being attacked. Either way life went, he did not care as long as he and his loved ones were ok.

He walked up the cramped stairway of the building, and found his room. He knocked on the door, to which a child's voice inside responded, "Who is it?".

The man said, "I got the de-riv-ery for a little punk." in a messy Asian accent.

The door opened, and a young boy came out and said, "Richy!" before giving the man a hug. "Did you bring some?"

The man walked into the room with the boy, and closed the door behind him before saying, "Yeah, I got your favorite Everett. Orange chicken with noodles."

"Yes! Thanks bro!"

The boy grabbed the bag in his brother's hand, and took it to the table to open his food. While the boy started to stuff his face, the young man Rich decided to walk towards the bathroom. The door was open, revealing a young woman inside washing her face. As she started to dry off, Rich snook up behind, and wrapped his arms around her body, right above the stomach area.

She shook a little in surprise, and said, "Hey, you need to stop doing that Richard! I wanna stab you right now."

"Come on babe, you need to relax. Just me comin' back from work, getting food for us. Hoping we can enjoy tonight."

"Yeah, well if you want to 'enjoy' this night, why don't you get those dishes done?"

"What? I thought we agreed that little Bruce was going to do those from now on? Didn't we Carol?"

"Today, he was very helpful in getting everything organized in our bedroom. Oh, and today I've been feeling under the weather. I think I'm getting a headache."

"Hm… great excuse. I guess I'll do the dishes." After he let go of Carol, Richard headed towards the sink in a kitchen area that didn't appear to have much. A small microwave, small fridge with no freezer, small stove with no oven, small peanut butter with no jelly, essentially everything in a basic apartment in a smaller size. "Damn, I wish could've gotten more money before leaving." Richard said to himself, thinking of events he regretted.

* * *

While this was not a great time of his life, the worst for Richard was yet to come. Only one day had passed, and hell had broken loose. A new conduit was attacking Olympia, taking down police and D.U.P forces alike. To protect Carol and Bruce, he grabbed them both in his arms, and ran to get out of the city. The D.U.P, however, kept everyone locked inside. No one was leaving without brutal force. With the top being covered in a swarm of D.U.P, Rich decided to go underground. I.e, the sewer system.

Entering the foul odors of the sewage filled pathway, Carol and Bruce tried their best to hold their breath. While those two were about to puke halfway through, Rich felt strange. The air did not harm him in any way, and felt rather soothing to him. This was rather odd, but not as strange as what happened next.

"Come on you two. I'll just jump across, and use that board to make a bridge to cross the sewage." Rich told his brother and girlfriend.

"You're crazy! You're ass is going to fall into that piss 'n crap down there!" Carol said in an irritated tone.

"Just quiet, it's like a five foot leap."

"More like eight!"

"Way to make it sound better Carol."

Without another word from either of them, Rich tried to make a jump over the sewage. For a second, it would seem like he would have made it, jumping a few feet into the air. The next second sadly, he ended up eating shit, literally. He fell in, with his feet landing first, then slipping off of them. His mouth was filled with fecal matter as he tripped into the sewage with his mouth open. He got up out of the sewage as fast as he could, tears rolling his face with all the nasty material inside his mouth and all over the outside of his body.

"Rich! OH MY GOD?!" Carol shouted at Rich.

The foolish man climbed onto the other side of the sewer stream, where he stayed on his hands and knees for about a minute.

"Richard, are you ok bro?!" Bruce asked his brother.

Barely able to breathe, Rich lifted his right hand up, and gave Bruce a thumbs up. He then began to puke all over the place, which made Carol do the same. Bruce almost did the same, but kept his head against the wall to keep from getting sick. After the puking, Rich began to feel strangely light headed. Then there was a feeling of blood rushing through his veins very quickly. He felt the strength to get moving, feeling very energized in a matter of seconds.

As he got up, the fecal matter covering his body started to dry out, turning into mere colorless, and scentless dust. Sadly though, that didn't mean he lost the smell of sewage on his body. "Ah man." he said to himself. This brought both surprise and confusion to the others.

After getting grossed out by his new fragrance, Rich grabbed the board, and slid it across the river of sewage. After doing so, his brother and girlfriend carefully walked across. As Bruce got to the other side, Rich tried to give him a hug. The boy though, backed away in fear, and said, "I'd prefer not to."

Rich put on an irritated look, and said, "What? Did the disappearing shit scare you?"

Carol grabbed a hold of Bruce and told Rich, "No. It's the fact that you smell like shit! No one wants to hug the smell of someone's ass!"

Bruce started giggling before looking up at Carol to tell her, "That's funny."

"Alright, whatever. Let's just get out of here!" Rich exclaimed.

They walked through the sewer system for what felt like hours, before finding the pipe that led to the river, (instead of more shit). Unfortunately, the end of the pipe was blocked off by a gate.

"Well, this is great." said Rich.

"Maybe if we go back, we can find another way." Carol suggested.

"No, we can't go back now. The water is literally right in front of us. We have to push forward."

"Richard…?"

While ignoring Carol, Rich tried to push open the gate at the end of the pipe. He tried hard to push it open, but nothing moved a single inch. Carol and Bruce would have tried to stop him, but he still wreaked of many foul odors, so they instead just kept their distance. After a minute or two, Rich became a little worn out from trying to open the gate. He got on his knees in front the gate, having his hands hang on to the gate a little. His brother looked through the gate, noticing a figure in the distance coming their way.

Bruce yelled, "Bro, there's someone in front of you!"

Richard looked up, and saw a woman with brown hair and a yellow jacket, right in front of the gate. As raindrops fell onto her, steam rose from her body. She grabbed a hole of the gate, and closed her eyes. Rich jumped back a little from her, thinking, "Oh god. Is she the bio-terrorist attacking police?"

This "bio-terrorist" held onto the gate tightly at its sides. Heat started to come from her hands, melting the metal into liquid form. Eventually, she was able to move the gate out of the way. She put her hand towards Rich as an offer to help him out. Rich hesitantly put out his hand to accept her offer, right before she backed away in disgust and said, "On second thought, you can get yourself out." Poor Rich, he'll never forget this day.

Rich got out of the drain, and was followed by his girlfriend and brother. Rich tried to talk with the conduit, but before anyone could speak, the D.U.P surrounded them all. It seemed as if either way, it was inevitable for Rich and his family to be captured. The interesting fact though about the whole situation, is that there is a group of conduits only a matter of minutes away from this city as well. Conduits lying within the woods, just North of a dormant volcano.

* * *

 **Hey everybody, CAJ is back! Sorry it's been a month since my last post. I've been working on some other pieces as well, such as a DBZ fanfic I Started before this infamous piece. Hopefully there will be more entries soon, showing off the original and OC infamous characters. Hope to see you all again soon, PEACE!**


	7. Chapter 7

_"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."_

 _-Martin Luther King Jr._

* * *

The group that Nicky had met seemed a little strange at first, but after spending a night with them and talking with the stylish hobo, it felt rather calming for her. She talked with him a while, trying to figure out what kind of person he was, as he did the same with her.

He asked, "Since you seem awake, what did you say your name was, kid?"

She responded with, "Oh, my name? My name is Nicky."

"Nicky, huh? Name's Michael, but my powers have gained me… less likeable names, like the 'Bone Man', or 'Bone Head'."

"Or the 'Big Boner'!" the hooded teenager yelled before laughing hysterically.

"Oh my, naughty boy you are Craig?!" the man in the plaid shirt replied before laughing as well, and giving a high five to the teen.

Michael dropped his forehead to his palm, before pinching his nose in irritation. "I swear, those queers." he whispered to himself. "Anyway kid, I hope you didn't understand what they just said."

"Oh don't worry, I did." she replied.

"What was that kid?"

"Others my age in the neighborhood were always watching late night cartoons. Meanwhile, I watched documentaries on the reproductive system before my father could share 'The Birds and the Bees' with me. There are also a number of reasons why he blocked almost everything on our computer."

"Oh,... I seeee..." Michael said hesitantly. "So, what kind of man was he?"

"I would prefer not to talk about him."

"Ok, it's cool Nicky, I understand. I had a shitty childhood myself."

"You look pretty good for a man living in the woods, and has had to avoid the D.U.P for some time. What's your story, since you're so persistent on knowing mine?"

After hearing that question, Michael looked down at his chest, and started to unzip his jacket. Afterwards, he pulled his shirt collar down to show the top of his chest. Nicky noticed a few scars across his left pectoral.

"How did that happen?" Nicky asked.

"Some people have a rough start, and some worse than others." Michael responded. "Maybe we can talk more about our pasts tomorrow. When you're settled in a little more, it'll hopefully be easier."

"Yeah, maybe."

"Either way though, we all have to go into the city right now. Gotta get some supplies from the city, and see if any folks need a hand with anything."

"Alright, I'll be ready in just a second." said the other man with slight excitement in his voice.

"Of course you're always enthusiastic about hanging around people who don't give a crap about us." said the teen in the hoody. "How can you stand them, Alvin?"

"Because I still have love for people even if they are ignorant and show no love. Also, you have to treat others like you would want another to treat you."

"That same ol' crap everyone wants to talk about, but no one ever does. Why should I do anything to help ignot fools who treat me like a monster?"

"You can do that, or just act like everyone else. Act just like the very people that you hate."

"Heh, whatever."

"Hey, you two done making out, because me and lil' Nicky here are ready!" Michael shouted at the man and teen.

The two arguing guys looked at Michael. Alvin stared with confusion at the bags that Mike and Nicky were holding. "You've already got the bags together?" he asked.

Craig got a little annoyed, and said, "I'm not a fag you dick."

"Well I'm not a pedophile either. He's just screwing around with us." Alvin told Craig. "And way to show kindness with your language."

"I said QUIT MAKING OUT! Let's go already!" Michael yelled at the foolish conduits.

"Ok, ok." Alvin said as he hurried to get his jacket on.

* * *

As they set out towards the city and out of the woods, it began to rain. Even though he knew her current form couldn't feel much, Michael decided to offer Nicky his jacket.

She refused the jacket, reminding him, "I can't feel anything on me. The rain isn't going to hurt my bones, so just keep the jacket."

"Whatever you say kid, but the weather could be affecting you." Michael suggested.

"What do you mean by that?" Nicky asked with confusion.

"You honestly look a little smaller than you did last night."

"I feel the same as when I met you guys. How can I be smaller?"

"He may be right, Nicky. You look closer to Craig's height now." Alvin stated to Nicky.

"Trying to talk more crap about my height, Alvin?" Craig asked Alvin with irritation in his voice.

"I'm just talking about how she was taller than 'Big Boner' yesterday."

"Watch it, Alvin." Michael said.

Looking toward Alvin, Craig told him. "She looks the exact same. I have no idea what you're talking about."

Alvin started to get frustrated with Craig's lack of acceptance of the idea, and asked the teen, "Why can't you listen when we try to point out...?"

"Hey, hey quiet." Michael whispered to the others as he kneeled down to sneak by the trees.

Both Alvin and Craig were quick to kneel down as well. Nicky was scared for a second, but then did the same as the others. The group moved low and quietly through the forest, until they started to hear voices. Michael stopped the group behind some bushes and rocks, then told them, "Keep your heads down.", as he looked over. He had a smirk on his face as he peered over the small vegetation. After a little more looking, he turned to the others.

Craig asked him, "Watchya see?"

"Three 'rock heads'." Michael responded.

"The hell are they doing here?"

"Who knows."

"Think we can take them?" Alvin asked in a nervous tone.

"They look like scouts, so they should be easy to deal with. Just stay on your guard in case they get reinforcements." Michael said.

Craig nodded his head towards Michael as he asked, "How ya wanna play this round?"

"Wolf in sheep's clothing."

"Cool."

"Let's do it then." Alvin told them.

The three guys got ready to fight the scouts, with Nicky practically left in the dust. Thinking they forgot about her, she tapped Michael's shoulder to ask, "What should I do?"

Michael turned around, and told her, "It would be best for you to stay here behind the bushes. I'm not sure if you can fight, and I'm not sure you would look very innocent with this… look of yours. You have to stay right here, got it?"

Nicky looked down at the ground, unable to frown, and said, "Yes, I understand."

"Good, this will be easy for us to deal with, so don't worry. Also, you can look from behind the bushes to get a nice view of the action."

"Ok…"

With that said, Michael started to sound like he was crying. Nicky got confused and was about to ask him something, when Alvin grabbed her shoulder and said, "Don't worry. It's all part of the act, Nicky."

After starting to build up some tears, Michael ran out of the bushes waving his arms everywhere. He ran straight to the D.U.P soldiers, screaming, "A bio-terrorist…! A bio-terrorist killed her…!"

The soldiers aimed their weapons towards him, with one of them saying, "Hold it there!"

Michael stopped running, put his hands in the air, and said in a tearful voice, "He killed her… my wife,... he took her…"

Nicky watched as Michael pointed down the street as if there was something to his right. Two of the soldiers, one male and one female, looked towards that direction and started walking that way to see if anything was wrong. The other soldier had Michael turn around, and bend down to his knees. He was checked over, mainly on his back and arms. Nicky thought he was likely checking for obvious signs of him being a bio-terrorist. It took her a second to notice, but both Alvin and Craig were out of sight. She looked behind her, and started to feel nervous with no one being close by. Nicky calmed herself though, as she watched the show in front of her come to play.

"What exactly did this 'bio-terrorist' do?" the soldier asked Michael.

"He… he… punched her face in!" Michael responded tearfully. He then shouted, "IT WAS HORRIBLE!"

As soon as he said that, a bunch of long, spiked sticks flew out towards the other soldiers. The female soldier dodged the sticks, while the male blocked some, and at the same time got two in his left arm.

"AHHHHH… ouch…!" the male soldier groaned.

"Crap! You ok there smart one?!" the female soldier asked.

"Holy…" the third soldier said.

While in that split second that the soldier was in surprise, Michael quickly got up, turned around, and punched the soldier in the back of his head. Nicky, even from afar, could see that Michael busted the back of his helmet. The soldier then tried to point his gun at him, but Michael grabbed the front of the gun to prevent it.

"Oh, damn! Just hold on a second here, Will." the female soldier said to her comrade on the ground. She then yelled out to her other comrade, "Hang in there, I'm coming!"

The soldier gathered bits of concrete from the ground, and used them to push down and launch herself into the air. As she leaped, another barrage of spiked sticks flew at her from the trees. The soldier attempted to dodge them, but did not realize that there was a bunch of wire that tied her ankles together. Instead of dodging in the air, she lost control, then got stabbed in the arms and legs. She fell a few feet from where Michael and the other soldier were fighting. It looked as though the soldier had the upper hand, as he pushed Michael towards the wall with a cluster of concrete. He then opened fire on Michael, who quickly got up to evade the bullets.

Sadly though, Michael is not a very fast person, so it wasn't long before he got shot up. Nicky covered her eyes as Michael got shot, then hesitantly moved her hands as the firing stopped. To Nicky's surprise, Michael was standing up like nothing had happened. She also noticed the soldier was struggling with his gun, right before he threw it in frustration. The soldier gathered a bunch of concrete shards from the ground, and attempted to fire them towards Michael.

As the soldier was about to launch the cluster, one of his arms was gripped by a rope made of wire. "Don't think so!" said Craig as he held the wire rope on the Dupe's arm.

"Oh my gosh." Nicky said to herself as she watched. "So this is how a real fight between the D.U.P and 'bio-terrorists' looks like."

The soldier was stuck in place, with nothing to do as Michael ran straight towards him. This time, not only was he going for the front, his fist changed a bit in shape and size. It appeared to be as solid as a rock, as it broke the helmet on impact and caused it to go flying in pieces. The soldier flew a few feet away, knocked out on the ground. The fight seemed all too easy.

"Damn man! You pounded that foo in the back and the front!" Craig told Michael hysterically.

"Hahahaha… Quit being a naughty boy, Craig!" Alvin said.

"Ya haven't got a chance in hell for that one!" Craig said as he somehow absorbed the wire that was attached to the soldier, each individual wire burrowing into the skin

Nicky became curious about how he did that with the wire, and wanted to go hang around the guys. So with the area looking clear of threats, she ran up to the boys to join them. She asked Craig, "How do you do that?"

Craig looked at her with a smile, and answered with, "Well, curious kid, it's just part of my power. My body can eat certain forms of wire, and it becomes part of me. In turn, I can use it like a whip and such. That's why some call me… 'chocolate whip'."

"Really…?"

"Of course not." Michael said. "Only name I've heard anyone call him is 'string man'."

"Screw you man. Always trying to ruin..." Craig said to Michael, before his attention was switched to a man on the ground.

"My leg… I think it's broken…" said the man.

The man looked to be in his 60's, and was in a lot of pain. It was apparent that his leg was hit by a cluster of concrete. He was on his belly, and wasn't able to move, or even see what happened to his leg. Alvin was the first to run up to him, and said, "Don't worry sir, we'll help you out sir."

"Huh,... you actually want to hel…? Ahhhhhhhh…."

"Calm down sir, I know just the thing we can do for the moment."

"Wait, what the hell is that?!" the man asked as he pointed towards Nicky.

"Oh don't worry, she's just a kid."

"Huh?!"

Alvin ran over to the female soldier who was impaled by multiple sticks in her limbs. As he got close, she told Alvin, "You damn bio-terrorist bastard. Once Augustine finds out about this, you assholes will get yours."

"Well until then, I'm going to protect people from assholes like you." Alvin responded.

With that said, he ripped two of the sticks from the soldier to get something done. After knocking her out with the sticks, he ran to the old man. Michael had flipped him over, with both Craig and Nicky watching. The man asked them, "What are you going to do to me?"

Alvin responded with, "I'm just going put a brace around your leg, and we'll take you to the hospital. Is that alright with you sir?"

"Sure, just hurry the hell up! Leg's killing me, you know."

Alvin got up to the old man, and snapped the two sticks to length. He set them on each side of the man's leg, then looked towards Craig as he asked, "Can you lend me a hand, 'string man'?".

An irritated look took form on Craig's face as he said, "You guys are all a bunch of dicks. Also,... no. I can't lend you a hand."

"So you're gonna act like a little prick instead of helping out?" Michael asked in an irritated tone.

"Screw off, I don't wanna help him out when there's not much wire I can help myself to." Craig told Michael.

"Maybe I shouldn't have helped when I had almost no calcium on me, and you started a god damn fire!"

"Alright, I'll help! Only 'cause ya helped me… I guess."

Craig got close to the man's leg, reached his hand over it, and concentrated on his hand. Wire started to form from his finger tips, and stretch around the sticks and leg.

"Does that hurt, son?" asked the injured man asked.

"No where as much as this leg of yours, old man." Craig responded.

As Michael said something to Craig about his smart ass remark, Nicky felt something strange. She closed her eyes,then opened them to see everything in a whole new way. Alvin, Craig and Michael all had a blue aura, and a strange yellow glow to what appeared to be their nervous systems. The strange vision faded, and Nicky wanted to try it again. She started blinking repeatedly, but did not get the same results. Then she thought to herself, "Maybe I have to concentrate more.", so Nicky tried to do so. She squinted her eyes tight, and concentrated hard on her surroundings. For a few seconds, there was nothing. Afterwards, she felt a strange pulse come from her body. It seemed like multiple figures were headed towards her direction. She opened her eyes, and turned around to see five figures leaping along the buildings. Each one had an orange glow to their nervous system, and a bright red aura. She turned to the guys as the strange vision wore off, and told them, "Something's coming."

Alvin looked at her with a confused look, and Craig responded with, "Would you all shut up?! If I can't concentrate,..."

"Hold on a second." Michael told the guys.

Both Alvin and Craig looked straight at him, with the civilian asking, "What is… ahhh… going on here?"

Michael then said, "I hear something strange too."

"Hey assholes!" said an obnoxious female voice.

"Who the hell..?" Craig questioned as he stopped tending to the leg.

Before anyone else could say anything, a huge cluster of concrete flew towards the conduits and civilian. While Alvin and Craig ran to dodge the attack, Nicky instinctively grabbed a hold of Michael's hand. "What are you doing Nicky?!" Michael said as he turned his back to the cluster to cover Nicky and the injured man. The barrage of concrete slivers made a big impact on the surrounding pavement, but seemed to have little affect on Michael.

"AHHHHHHHHH… Oh god, I can't be dead now! I CAN'T!" the man shouted with his eyes covered by one of his arms. He then moved his arm, and looked down at his legs to see what hit them. He saw Nicky with her spine over his broken leg. The civilian freaked out a little, then looked to his right to see the form Michael had taken. "My god, you conduits are freaky."

Michael looked at his hands, and saw that they were covered in a thick coating of bone. "Yeah, I guess we may be a little too freaky for our own good." he said to the man as he noticed that the armor covered most of his body.

"Stand down, bio-terrorist!" a D.U.P soldier commanded Michael.

As the soldier walked up to him, Michael looked at Nicky, and told, "Watch over him please." Nicky then looked at him with a non-existent confused look, with his request being a rather large order to fill. "Either that, or run your little behind off. I wouldn't blame you if you did."

"That wasn't a request you ignot bastard!" the soldier said before opening fire with an assault rifle.

Michael turned around quick, and threw a solid punch towards his chest. Before he could land the punch, the soldier leaped into the air onto a small building nearby. Along with that, two other soldiers opened fire on Michael, who started moving to draw their attention away from Nicky. The young conduit now felt she was in a strange position, with either defending, or running being her options. For that she had been through though, even with the fear she had, Nicky didn't want to run this time. The man was in pain, and it reminded her of when she was in pain. So she stayed, decided to look at his leg.

"Hey kid, while it would be nice for you to help my leg, I THINK YOU SHOULD JUST GET US OUT OF HERE!" the injured man cried.

"Sir, I need you to quiet right now." she tried to say in a calm voice.

"QUIET?! THERE'S SOLDIERS AND BIO-TERRORISTS FIGHTING! I AIN'T…" Nicky heard the man say before she began to ignore him.

As she focused on the man's leg, and removed Craig and Alvin's unfinished work, Nicky noticed the misshapening of it. The leg was bent in a strange fashion at the knee. She thought to herself, "Maybe nothing is really broken, maybe it's just dislocated.". She focused harder on the man's leg, and began to feel a familiar sensation. It reminded her of what she had done before. If she still had eyes, they would have been wide open with fear. It took her a moment, but she was able to move past it. At least, enough to focus on the man's leg again. Looking at them, she felt the bones like they were in her hands. Nicky tried her best to remember how the bones looked together on a skeleton model. As she tried to reset the placement of the leg bones, Nicky missed something. Her miss also caused a lot of pain for the man who started yelling slurs at her. Instead of getting too angry, she just somehow grabbed his jaw, and kept his mouth shut with his powers.

Craig tied a knot around a soldier's arms, right before knocking him out and telling Nicky, "Get a move on girl, I don't know why you're still here! Forget the old man, we'll deal with him!". He then turned around to help Alvin fight off two other D.U.P soldiers.

* * *

 _ **[Nicky's thoughts]**_

 _For how ill tempered and ignorant Craig, he did have a point. If I stay, I could put both me and this man in danger. Running feels like a cowardly thing to do though as well. I'm not sure what would be worse._

* * *

 **L2 Keep Calm And Help The Man**

Stay with the injured civilian and try to fix his leg.

 **R2 Say "Pass" And Move Your Ass**

Run away, and try to find safety from the D.U.P troops.

 **Hello everybody, sorry for this late ass entry. Had to work a crap load, and I kept hating how this entry turned out. Either way, I got you guys this piece with a karmic choice, and I promise another will follow soon. A real promise! Just to let all those who submitted characters understand, you may not see your guys or gals 'til later in [Part 1] or the beginning of [Part 2]. Either way, just wanted to let you all know, "I'm back bitches!", and I'm gonna keep giving you more on Nicky's crazy story. Same as always, CAJ OUT & PEACE!**


	8. Chapter 8

**L2 Keep Calm And Help The Man** Selected

 **Karma Rank:** (Still) **Bright Runaway**

 **Achievement: "MEDIIIIIIIIIC!"**

* * *

The young conduit, even though she was told she could run, stayed to help the man stuck on the ground. As Nicky was dealing with the civilian's leg, the battle between the conduits and soldiers got more intense.

"Go to hell you scrap of twisted metal!" a male soldier yelled at Craig.

"You first, asshole!" Craig yelled back before using his wire to grip a piece of the pavement. He then swung it like a chain mace right at the soldier's face.

The soldier fell down to the ground, but another soldier jumped in to attack Craig as well. Alvin wasn't having any better luck, as he was being attacked by two soldiers who kept blocking his attacks.

"Sticks and stones may break bones, but you're not going to be breaking our stones any time soon." A female soldier said to Alvin.

"Well try this one on for size!" Alvin shouted back at the soldier. He then turned himself into a cluster of small twigs and sawdust, surprising the 'Dupe' as he went around her. He then returned to his humanoid form, and charged into her back. She went flying with a dozen splinters lining her spine.

As the other two conduits were having fun, Michael got to tango with the commander. He had to dodge and block humongous cluster after cluster of concrete shards the soldier was throwing his way. "Bring it on rock head!" Michael shouted at him.

Nicky, after some hard thinking, remembers the skeleton model. She takes a look at the bones again, and attempts to put the puzzle back together. Even with the crazy battle she was next to, Nicky eventually became almost oblivious to the danger she was in. Helping the man almost felt like a puzzle game, which was simple fun for her.

"Can you put it together? Or do you need my help, Nichole?" she remembered her father telling her before.

"No, I can do it Daddy." was her response.

With that memory in mind, she pictured the bones in the man's leg as the puzzle pieces she tried to put together. Nicky focused very hard on the bones, while at the same time almost forgetting that she was fixing a human being, and not a picture.

"Hey, I don't wanna rush ya or nothin skeleton kid, but WE'RE RIGHT NEXT TO A GOD DAMN BATTLE!" the man yelled at Nicky.

The conduit didn't pay attention to him as she got a tight grip on the bones. With the memory of the puzzle on her mind, she used that thought to quickly push the bones right back into place. As that happened, Nicky yelled, "YES!".

At the same time, the man screamed, "FUUUUUUUUUHHH…", and quickly followed it with, "...hhhront door side!".

"What?" Nicky asked with a confused look.

"I don't know, but thanks kid."

"Do you need help to get up?"

"No kid, but thank you."

As Nicky moved back to give the man space to get up, a huge cluster of concrete flew towards towards her. Before she could say anything else to the civilian, she flew through an alleyway.

"NICKY?!" Michael shouted as he started running towards her. As he tried to get to Nicky, a soldier ran up to Michael, and punched him in the face. Michael had almost forgotten he had to deal with the D.U.P soldiers first.

With Michael and the others fighting the 'Dupes', then the civilian running off with a limp, Nicky was by herself. Close to passing out, barely seeing anything around her, she looked up at the sky. Nicky saw a slight bit of sunlight from a hole in the clouds above. Nicky enjoyed the sight of the light before some lower clouds quickly covered the light. The only thing about these lower clouds was that they seemed very close.

Nicky tried to look around a little, but all she saw was mist. She couldn't tell if someone did this, or if she had gotten dizzy. With what remained of her strength, Nicky tried sending off another pulse. She saw someone limply running with a dark red nervous system surrounded by a blue aura. It was likely the man she had just helped out. Along with that, Nicky saw the other conduits fighting the soldiers, then another individual. As she was just about to pass out, Nicky noticed that this one had a yellow nervous system, but with a purple aura. The conduit saw the person's aura come closer, before she finally passed out.

* * *

She didn't wake up for quite a while. Even for a conduit, young Nicky was still very weak. Having started off life with puzzles and books rather than a bat and cleats, she was not in good physical shape either. Over time though, she may get stronger, but now Nicky has other things worry about. For when she did wake up, Nicky found her surroundings to be a bit uncomfortable. It was dark, wet, and a man was getting the crap beat out of him.

"Please, I… I don't know where they are…" the man said with blood in his mouth.

The sight of a D.U.P soldier hanging with his helmet off, and face covered in blood was more than enough to make Nicky quickly move backwards in fear. Along with that, she got to witness a man covered in green and brown keep punching him. He appeared to be around Michael's age, but massive in muscle tone. Though this scene was the first thing to catch her sight, they weren't the only people there.

"Hi kid." a female voice said from her right.

"Ahh, who…?" Nicky muttered in response to the woman who greeted her.

"Hold on a sec' kid." the woman said as she turned her attention to the muscular green man. "Hey, enough. That's all we're going to get out of him. Now take him to the room."

"Sure thing, Becca." the brute responded before grabbing the rope that held the soldier's hands above his head.

As he did so, the rope started to tear apart, with green mold growing on the spot. Eventually the rope gave way, and the soldier was taken away. Nicky was scared of what was happening. She almost got up and ran, but that thought was brushed off to the side as the woman walked up to Nicky.

She smiled as she said, "You've got some interesting capabilities, especially for a conduit as young as you are."

"What do you mean?" the confused child asked.

"I mean like what you did for that old man. Many conduits can heal people, but not in the way you did. You fixed his dislocated knee."

"Yes, I did. But it also hurt him a lot too."

"Even if it did hurt him, I saw him run real fast for someone who just got his leg broken. That is a very unique trait kid, along with the fact that you're looking smaller than when we brought you here."

"Smaller?"

"Yes, but that's besides the point. I want to know, other than being a skeleton and fixing broken legs, what can you do?"

"Well,... I don't know. I don't know you either."

"True, but I'm not some stranger. I can help you with your powers."

"Maybe, but someone else was going to…"

"If you're referring to the handsome one that was out there, I doubt he's got skill to survive for long. The D.U.P are rushing in, and all hell is going to break loose." the woman said with a serious voice.

"How do I know you can do better? You sound like a stocker."

The woman gave Nicky a sour look, and told her, "Sometimes I like to know what I'm dealing with. Besides, it's kinda hard to not draw attention when you use your powers. Why do think the D.U.P are here to begin with?"

Nicky paused for a second, and looked at a brick wall before looking back at the woman to say, "You brought them in?".

"I lured them in. Unlike most conduits, I don't fear the D.U.P."

"Why would you want to do that?"

"To lure in their leader, that is, once I deal with the rest of her little 'rock heads'."

"You want their leader?"

"That's basically what I just said, kid. I have big plans myself, like I'm sure your friend does."

"Not any like yours. Why are you telling me your plans?"

"Oh, I've only told you the tip of the iceberg. Besides kid, if you run off, who are you going to tell? The D.U.P?"

"You seem a bit… scary."

"Yeah, well, that's what this torn hoody on me is for. Either that, or the scar on my face. But I'm not trying to be mean to you at all, little girl. In fact, I want you to hang around actually."

As she said that, two others started walking towards the woman to stand behind her. One was the green and brown man who was beating the soldier. The other, a teenage boy who was slightly taller than the woman, and had rope wrapped around his left shoulder and right side. The teen said, "It's gonna be fun around us. Trust me, I didn't think so at first either." in a slight Mexican accent.

"You sound like a cholo." Nicky randomly threw out there.

"Well, that is how I lean, like a cholo. How you even know about that stuff?"

"The song."

"I already like this kid."

"Well enough about the music,..." the brute interrupted. "...we have bigger things to talk about."

"Calm yourself, 'shit-for-brains'. You can't lose your patience." the scarred woman told him.

"Lose my patience? He's still out, and they might do the same to him as they did to…!"

"That won't happen. I made you a promise, but you HAVE to keep up your end as well."

"Fine. Let's get this over with though. I could use a bite to eat from an irritating old man I knew."

"We'll see Wong in a bit." the woman told him before focusing back on Nicky. "He is right though, we do have a little business we need out of the way."

"Well, I guess I'll hang around with you for a little bit."

"Good, I'm glad you made the right choice. Especially when your friends are probably half way across the city." She then turned to the roped teen and told him, "Now why don't you make sure the other kids feel at home. Me and Rich gotta go, but you can handle those two on your own, right?"

"Shoot. A cool, little youngster with big balls and a foo with no balls. It'll be Easy."

"Good. Just make sure you don't screw this up, Eric." the woman said right before she turned around to Rich. The two conduits then ran off the side of the small building they were on.

Noticing that, Nicky took a second to check her surroundings. They were on the roof of a small building, which was built to connect with a taller structure. There were two doors as well, one looking very industrial, the very heavy duty. The conduits who made this roof their home had crates and supplies lying everywhere. This aspect reminded her of why she didn't like other kids at her house. "Hmm…?" she muttered.

"Like what you see kid?" the roped teen asked her.

"It looks like it needs some cleaning."

"Yeah, probably. Don't be looking at this Mexican though, 'cause I am not cleaning shit."

"Ok. It's not bad though. I like how it is above the ground."

"Yeah, it is a good feature of this little home of ours."

Remembering what the woman had said to the teen, Nicky asked him, "Who were you talking about?"

"What, kid?"

"You said something about a 'foo with no balls'. Who were talking about?"

"Oh,... we was talking about the almost useless, and pessimistic puto over there." the teen said as he pointed towards a pair of crates next to each other.

Another teen popped out from behind them, knowing that he was being talked about. He wore a black snow jacket, and grey cargo pants. The teen also had darker skin than the rest of the group did, and very messy dark hair. He didn't look like he was in mint condition, but he still had better attire than the one she was talking. Torn tank top and Dickie shorts on him.

"Now you decide to pop your black ass out when we're talking about ya."

"For the hundredth time, I'm not black. I'm Portuguese." the pessimistic teen told him.

"Whatever. Oh yeah,..." the roped teen said before he turned to Nicky to continue with, "...forgot to say who I is. Name is Sebastian, and if you can't tell by the rope, I can control string and rope."

"Really? That does sound kind of nice." Nicky responded.

The other teen walked over to join in on the conversation. He awkwardly said, "Hi there, name is Felix.", before he shook one of her hands.

"Always anxious to meet new people, huh Felix?" Sebastian told the awkward teen. "About the only time you ever have any balls."

Felix ignored Sebastian's trash talk, and instead paid attention to the skeleton body of Nicky. He moved back a few steps to sit down on a busted cooler, and asked, "How did you end up this way? Are you able to transform?".

"I don't really know. There was a man who did something to me, and..." Nicky paused, remembering everything that had happened only days ago.

"What happened? Did he hurt you?"

Sebastian noticed the sudden change in the skeleton kid's posture, and asked, "Did the puto try to touch in a nasty way?!".

With that question, she started remembering more. Nicky remembered the reason she was there in the first place, and when that woman said, "Quite struggling. I always get what I want. You gotta understand that.". The thought of those words brought back some fear, and with that, a river of tears.

Sebastian then stepped back, with Felix asking, "Are you ok?".

The memories started to play with Nicky's head. She thought of every horrible thing that happened, along how her powers made her want to kill. The pressure built up inside, making her more tearful.

"Need some time. Cool. I'll leave you be, I can understand the drama with that shit." Sebastian said as he turned around to walk away.

Without a single thought on what she was doing, Nicky got up to run over the edge of the building. When she did so, the conduit child jumped off the building a few feet into the air,... right before a rope grabbed her ankle, and made her head slam against the building she jumped from. It knocked the young girl out cold.

After hearing the loud sound of the child's skull hitting the building, Felix asked Sebastian, "What are thinking?! You made her head get smashed?!".

With the rope grabbing Nicky in his hand, he yelled back, "What the hell are YOU doing?! You just sat there as she jumped off?! Now help me out, fool?!"

Felix got up to help guide Nicky's skeletal body back on to the building. When she was back on there, they set her on an old sleeping bag. Surprisingly, there wasn't a single scratch on her.

Sebastian looked at Felix and said, "Best hope she doesn't figure out about this screw up of yours."

"Screw up of mine, I actually helped her earlier."

"A mist cloud ain't shit, so I don't wanna hear it from your ass right now!" With that said, Sebastian turned around to go lean by the door.

Felix walked back to the cooler to sit down, and looked at the young conduit. He felt kind of bad for her. "She must have been suffering from serious trauma." he thought to himself.

With all that, the night cooled on top of the building where these conduits stayed. No sign of the other conduits Nicky was around, but at least she wasn't alone. Only question is, what kind of people are these new faces? Hopefully this will not be answered to Nicky in a traumatizing way.

* * *

 **Hey everyone, CAJ is back with another small chapter. It will take a little while, but [Part 2] will come, and we'll see a mixture of OCs and familiar cats from the world of inFamous. I still find it funny that you all are a bunch of goody goodies, but at the same time I understand with the fact dat I made my main character a ten year old girl. Anyway, see y'all nihs around. CAJ IS OUT!**


	9. Chapter 9

" _There are three constants in life... change, choice and principles."_

 _-Stephen Covey_

* * *

Morning came to Olympia, and along with it, a message to everyone. News for both humans and conduits alike. TVs around Washington all let out a special report of the situation in Seattle.

A blonde, female news anchor said, "We have just received word on the bio-terrorist threat in Seattle. Local Law Enforcement confirms that the neon bio-terrorist has been taken into D.U.P custody. She is currently being transported to Curdan Cay Station."

As she kept talking about the D.U.P's success, some began to get worried about the increasing reach of the soldiers.

"They got a poor little girl, I hope those dick heads are happy." Alvin said as he, Craig and Michael walked by a TV.

"Half the time those assholes wanna kill us. So be thankful that 'dat druggie is still alive." Craig told Alvin.

"Whatever you say, dear."

"Don't call me dear."

"Fine then, young man. You should try to show a little more kindness though. That girl did…"

"I'm still deciding whether or not that was stupid of her."

"She helped someone in need."

"And she got knocked the hell out for it!"

"At least she did something, Craig." Michael told him. "She's only a child, but she stayed to help out someone in need."

"How do you know if she's just a child? She's as tall as me, and has a deeper voice than any little girl…"

"I'm more than twice your age, kid. I've seen much more than you, and have had experienced with all kinds of people."

"Which is why you have us running everywhere instead of talking us into a little motel or something."

Michael turned around and stopped the other conduits from moving any further. He looked at Craig with a stern look before telling him, "In case you haven't noticed, those days are dead now. People all looking at each other funny, no love and no trust. The kind of shit that's followed me most of my life.".

"Oh, and I bet you got some great story about how you became the foo' you are today. I don't care about any life experiences of yours that don't help our situation. I'm hungry as hell!" Craig told Michael.

Alvin giggled a little before asking Craig, "Ahhhhhh, does the young man need some food to stop the "rumbly" in his tummy?".

Craig got really irritated before he said, "You guys both suck… wong?".

The teenage conduit was staring at a food truck that said "Wong Way". The other two looked at it as well, noticing that the truck was in bad shape. The tires were either flat or ripped off, and there were huge dents all over the vehicle. They started walking towards the truck, being curious about the situation.

Michael stopped the other conduits again to tell them, "Stare on your guard you two."

Both responded with, "Alright.".

Michael walked around the flat side of the truck, while Alvin and Craig went by the window. Michael founda mixture of mold, sweet and sour sauce, and blood dried on some of the dents in the trunk. Alvin and Craig found something rather different from strange sauce mixtures.

Alvin said, "Ewwwww… What is that smell?", as they walked by the service window.

"Crap. It smells like the damn sewer." Craig told him as he looked over the counter.

Inside the truck was a bigger mess of sauces. Along with that, they spotted the top of a huge, green object by the counter. They couldn't tell what it was, for the rest of it was just out of view. With this, Alvin told Craig, "Let's get to the back to get a better view.".

Craig responded with, "As long as you mean the back of the truck to see the green thing, and not somethin' else."

"You call me a fag when think about those things? Someone seems to be stuck in the closet."

"Screw off."

"Hey, you two get over here." Michael said from the back of the truck.

The other two conduits walked over to Mike to see what he wanted. He pointed out a rusty stop sign pole that appeared to be welded against the door.

"This is some crazy stuff here. They torched it to the door." Craig said.

"I don't think they torched it. Some of these marks on the pole look like hand prints." Michael stated.

Alvin looked straight at Michael and asked, "Do you think the D.U.P. did this?".

Michael took a closer look at the hand prints. He told them, "I have no doubt of how low they can go…"

"Ha, tight." Craig said.

"...but I don't know of any rock heads that can weld metal with their bare hands. I guess I'll try something a little different for this."

"You think you can handle that?" Alvin asked.

"No, but let's find out."

Michael set down his backpack, and pp roll down his face.

Craig turned around, and began to vomit. He started to see things, like another man's corpse being burned. He couldn't understand why he was seeing it.

Michael stood there, feeling a slight bit worried about the situation. He had seen what many things other conduits could do, but this was quite unique.

"God help us. I've seen a man shoot lazers from his eyes, a woman run on water, and a child lift a car… but this…" Michael said with discomfort.

"This is screwed up is what it is! He looks like he's been left for days!" Craig said abruptly.

"Look over there. What is that?" Alvin asked, pointing towards something small and white down an alleyway.

Alvin ran straight towards it, with Craig and Michael slowly following. He picked it up, turned around to look at Michael to show him what he found.

Michael raised an eyebrow before asking, "You found Chinese take out?".

"I'd feel in the mood for orange chicken if I didn't just see a dead guy." Craig said.

"Same here, along with fried noodles. Do you think that that other conduit did this?" Alvin said as he dropped the box on the ground.

"No, but I pray who did this… doesn't have Nicky." Michael responded.

* * *

Only a matter of minutes away, the other group of conduits gathered together to talk on their rooftop home. Nicky had just barely woken up to hear the conversation between everyone.

"You pair of useless retards. Are you trying to give her BRAIN DAMAGE?!" Rebecca yelled at Sebastian and Felix.

"Hey it's not my fault that this fool over here can't do anything." Sebastian told Rebecca as he pointed towards Felix.

"Hey, you were the one who slammed her head against the building." Felix said to Sebastian.

"You were the one that didn't do…"

"Both of you, shut it. I'm tired of hearing two girls fighting over their boyfriend." Rebecca told the two teenagers.

Both stared at Rebecca in confusion, right before the big conduit said, "That got you two to shut up, just like when I shut up an old man last night.".

"What do you mean?" Nicky asked as she tried to get to her feet.

"Oh crap, the undead G in training is still with us." Sebastian said.

"Really?" Felix questioned.

"Shut up."

"Both of you quiet." Rebecca said as she moved between the two conduits.

As Rebecca walked, she lifted her hands to point at both Sebastian and Felix. From both of her hands came a strong burst of air, knocking the two onto their behinds. After she did so, she headed towards Nicky, who felt scared at the moment.

She told the child, "Glad you're awake. I might have been close to killing those two morons over there.".

"What was the big one talking about?" Nicky asked.

"Oh, that. Just a little issue we had to deal with last night."

"What was the issue with the 'old man' poop head was talking about?"

"About the same issue that all conduits face when it comes to humans: You cannot trust them."

"Oh,... I see."

"See what?"

Young Nichole kept silent for that moment, remembering what the cannibal conduit had told her. About how he trusted Jacob, and how he was betrayed by him as well. Nicky, being no ordinary child, quickly felt the similarities between the two situations without having to hear more from Rebecca's mouth. Before she completely settled on that conclusion she asked, "So did this man really deserve to die?".

Rebecca paused for a moment before saying, "Enough about that kid. How are you doing? You don't seem to have any scratches on your skull, but you look tiny as hell now.".

"What are you talking abou…?" Nicky said as she tried to get up, only to fall over in pain.

"God damn it! Are you alright?! Kid?" Rebecca said with a serious tone of voice.

Rebecca turned Nicky over to see if she was responsive at all. The young, skeletal conduit felt very weak. Outside of anyone's knowledge, she had not consumed anything for days. It was only a matter of time before the child would become unable to function properly.

"I feel… thirsty." Nicky told Rebecca.

"Well,... I'm not sure what I can do for there kid. Can you drink water?" Rebecca asked the child.

"I… don't… know…"

"Great! Any of you morons got an idea on how to help her?"

"How 'bout dis?" Sebastian said as he brought his boom box to set right next to Nicky.

Rebecca looked up at Sebastian before saying, "Noose boy, are you fu…?".

In the middle of Rebecca cursing at Sebastian, Nichole put her hand by the boom box. She concentrated on it, and absorbed the energy from the loud music player. The orange aura surrounded her again, and she got a rush that went up and down her spine. Rebecca backed up as the little skeleton kid got up on to her feet.

"Oh, well… Now you can start talking kid." Rebecca said.

"What are you trying to get out of me?" Nicky asked.

"Since you're looking alright, I want to ask you a little bit about what you're doing here. Or perhaps I should be asking about these pretty rocks." Rebecca said as she held up a blast core. "The energy from this almost feels like that of a conduit tracker's generator."

Nicky was a little shocked, for she thought her bag fell off, and was in the hands of Michael and the others. Nicky tried her to keep her calm as she told Rebecca, "They were… rocks… that a man gave me.".

"Really? Where is this man now?"

"He was in the forest. In a small cabin."

"Alright. Well, that was awful nice of that man to give you this. But what are you and the handsome one doing here? Trying to set up another freak show on our location?"

"We just wanted to get some supplies, and a warm place to rest. I haven't eaten something in days."

"I guess that explains why you almost blacked out when you stood up, kid. You know, I would like to talk to that group of yours. Hopefully we can all get along, and help each other out. Wouldn't that be nice, kid?"

"I don't know if all of them would get along with killers."

"Killers? What are you talking…? Oh, so you think we're just a bunch of psychopaths?"

Sebastian walked up closer to the two, telling Nicky, "I don't know about you kid, but I had to kill just to get away from my home town.".

"You killed? Why?" Nicky asked.

"It was in self-defense. My brother's friend tried to sell me out. His dad tried to hold me 'til some putos could pick me up. I tried to get out, but they were too stubborn to let my ass go. The father had a gun at me, so I whipped it out his hand, and tried to wrap a rope 'round his chest."

"What did you grab?"

"I got him by the neck. The same foo' who tried to sell me out grabbed me, and the rope tightened around his father's neck. I killed him just like that."

"Oh… my…"

"The dumbass then tried to get the gun too. But I also got him by the neck, but he was only knocked out. After all that, I ended up living a life no different from my previous one."

"You're saying that you…?"

"I don't care about what I did. I killed someone's dad, and now I'm on the run with a crew that knows how to survive in a world that sees you for the way that you're born, rather than the way you act."

"Ok. Then what about you? Did you kill anyone when you found out?" Nicky asked Rebecca.

"I didn't kill anyone. I didn't live a shitty life like Noose Boy or Shit Head before my powers started. I had a nice, simple life with my father. My mother died in an accident when I was young, but I still had a great life with what I had. My father, in truth, was the only one who really cared about me."

"What happened to you that changed you into what you are?"

"The D.U.P did a bullshit "random check for bio-terrorist activity. And they found me. My father stood up to them. He acted so brave in that moment, telling them, 'You aren't coming into my house without a fucking warrant to do so.', and slammed the door on them."

"He does sound like a brave man. A real hero."

"Yeah, well… heroes tend to die easily in this world. After he did that, a woman busted through the door, and sent ten bullets into his chest."

Nicky just sat there trying not to feel sad about the stories she was hearing.

Rebecca continued on with her story on how her start was. "I ran up to his lifeless body, and uselessly tried to help him. One of the soldiers tried to grab me, while another came in with handcuffs. I wasn't going to let grab a hold of me, and let my dad's death be for nothing. In anger, I somehow let out a sonic boom. One that sent all the soldiers flying, and one that I haven't been able to repeat since. I was the first conduit to have successfully escaped from the D.U.P since the big one destroyed Detroit.".

"The big one? You mean the monster that tore apart Michigan?"

"Yeah, the 'monster' that did that. Anyway, like we're trying to say, we don't kill because we want to squander our powers. We kill because it's what has kept us alive after the redhead hag became a poster child."

"Hold up one sec'." Sebastian said out of the blue. "I hear something something."

"What do you hear?" The brute asked.

"Sounds like three dudes walking this way. Might be another patrol."

Rebecca got up and said, "That can't be right. The next patrol doesn't come for another 1 hour at least. Oh well, we can't take chances."

Rebecca pointed to the ground, telling the others to get their heads down. She grabbed Nicky by the back of her neck to force her head down. As the conduits tried to keep quiet, they all could hear the three individuals walking through the alleyway below.

One of them asked another, "I don't know if this could be the right place at all." with a squeamish tone.

A very familiar voice said, "Well it does smell just like like the other crap does."

"Huh?" Nicky blurted out, before Rebecca pushed up her bottom jaw.

"Oh yeah, this is definitely the place. I guess unlike you two, I can actually track a killer." Another voice said.

"Hold up,... is that...?" Sebastian whispered to himself.

A few wire hooks shot up from below, gripping the edge of the roof they were on. Rebecca and the brute got up to fight whatever came up. As both Nicky and Sebastian got up, an individual in a black hoody jumped up, with wires going into his skin.

"Nicky?" The hoodie wearing conduit questioned as he looked at the young skeleton.

Nicky put on a smile as she said, "I thought that was you…" right before Rebecca grabbed her.

"Who the hell are you?!" Rebecca yelled at the individual.

"What the hell are you doin' to her?!" he said back.

"Woah, Craig. We don't have to escalate crap here." Sebastian said.

"Wait a minute, how you know my name?" the wire conduit said as he pulled back his hood.

"What? How do you not remember?"

Rebecca made a sour face before shouting, "What are you even talking…?"

Before the angry gal could finish her question, both the stylish hobo and the plaid shirt character jumped up onto the top of the roof. The brutish conduit ran up to stand next to Rebecca, expecting a showdown to happen.

"So you are here, Nicky. It's good to see that you're alright." Michael said.

"You mind letting the little girl go now? We were hoping to get her some place safe." Alvin told Rebecca.

"And she'd be more safe with you? I'm not sure about that." Rebecca responded.

"Then what would you suggest then, you crazy foo?" Craig asked Rebecca.

Rebecca paused for a moment, giving a real stern look as she told Craig, "Why don't you join us?"

"The hell?" Craig responded.

"Why should we join you? We've only just met you now." Michael said.

Rebecca let go of Nicky, who decided to sit on an edge of the roof away from everyone. Felix had that same idea, and ran to the door, which was locked.

"In case you you haven't noticed, things are not getting any easier in this world. Especially for people like us." Rebecca told him.

* * *

 **[Nicky Comic Scene]**

 **Rebecca talked with Michael about how it would be a good idea for all of us to group up. Talking about how all of us came from different backgrounds, but have the same goal in mind. We all wanted to be equal, yes. Michael thought that it would be nice to team up as well, if it wasn't for the fact that Rebecca was a killer, and neither of them could agree on what to do with the people of Olympia. Michael wanted to help them gain freedom of the D.U.P, but Rebecca desired their destruction for their mistreatment of conduits. She turned out to be one of the D.U.P's most wanted, and a killer of many people. The big conduit attempted to attack Michael, but had his legs tied together with wire instead. Michael and Rebecca walked towards each other, and stood with only three feet of space between them. It looked obvious here at this point. I was in the middle of two groups that already disliked one another. A group that preferred to keep people alive, and one that murdered just to get by. It would seem that I had to choose who to back up, even though I had not spent even a day with either clique.**

 **L2 Michael's Sense of Honor: Follow Michael to help the people of Olympia.**

 **R2 Rebecca's Thoughts of Carnage: Join the new group to take Olympia over.**

* * *

 _ **[Author Notes]**_

 **No comment. This has been one long ass wait. Been working plenty, and I only so much time to even think about what looks good on paper before I type it. Big sorry to all those who sent in character concepts. As one can tell, gon' be a long wait. To be honest, I was encouraged by my girlfriend to write up some more for this story, (god knows what I'd do without her). But enough about my weird, Flip lifestyle. This choice right here is another big one. This one will change how I write the rest of this story, and switch around a thing or two in Nicky's Karma Rank. So, (as I usually say), choose wisely. CAJ OUT, PEACE!**


	10. Chapter 10

**R2 Rebecca's Thoughts of Carnage** Selected

 **Karma Rank Changed to:** Brat

 **Achievement:** "What man needs!"

* * *

 _ **[Nicky Comic Scene]**_

 **Michael seemed like such a nice guy, but if there's anything I've learned from the world, being nice only gets you so far. This group also seemed a little more fun too, even with their deadly nature. Maybe, just maybe though… this is exactly what the world could use.**

* * *

"Michael, back off." Nicky told Michael.

Mike looked straight at her with a confused look before saying, "I'm sorry, I don't know if I heard that right. It almost sounded like you wanted to side with a murderer.".

"If that's what you want to call it, yes."

Alvin had a very concerned expression on his face, as he looked at Nicky. He asked her, "Why? Why Nicky? She was killing people for…"

"Oh, shut up you wuss." said the brute. "It's funny, I misjudged the kid. But she seems to be the only one of you who knows what needs to get done in this town."

Michael looked at Nicky in disapproval as he said, "I guess I misjudged her too. She's very intellectual, but not very smart. Young girl still has a lot to learn."

Rebecca walked up to him, and rubbed his chest, saying, "Well of course there's a lot for her to learn. She is only a child after all. Having you with us could help her understand this world better. You're not one to abandon a child, are you?"

"I'm not one to corrupt a child like you!"

Rebecca backed up a few steps, replying with, "Corrupt her? Have you seen this world? All of the good people have been killed off or imprisoned, and you want to talk about...?"

"How you want to convince Nicky to kill off everyone based on a trait that they were born with! Based on what they are and not who they are!"

"Quite a mindset you have there. You almost act as if she's convinced me to kill. I don't hope to any time soon, but the only way we can be safe is take charge." Nicky told Michael.

Mike looked at her with a concerned look and said, "Nicky, control is only…"

"An illusion? Yes, of course it is. People cannot control something that is not part of their body, but we can show we're strong. This is the only way we can bring change."

Michael changed his expression, looking very stern. He told Nicky, "I see. Now you've adopted that mindset. Well, this is goodbye then kid. Don't expect kindness from me next time we meet.", right before he turned around and said, "Alvin, Craig, let's go.".

"Hold on one sec'." Craig said before he walked up to Sebastian to ask, "How the hell do you know my name, ese? You didn't answer me.".

"I can't believe that you don't remember, or that you got away from those Dup bags." Sebastian responded.

"Huh?"

"You and I were friends, man. We hung out in LA together. You and I both got powers, and you helped me escape."

"It would seem that even you have a reason to stick with us." Nicky told Craig.

"I don't know. How the hell I know you won't back stab me?" Craig asked.

"Craig, no. What about what I told you?" Alvin said to Craig.

"Would you shut up! I'm trying to hear what they say!" Craig shouted at Alvin.

"You know what Craig?" Mike said as he looked towards Craig. "Fine then! After all I put up with from you, after what Alvin did for you, and you choose to treat us this way still. Since you're so curious about what they got in store for you, why don't you go and join 'em?!" After saying that, both Mike and Alvin jumped off the building and ran off.

"You sure pissed off that pale guy there." Sebastian said with a little laughter in his voice.

"Good riddance to thems'. They just some stupid whities. No offense to any of you guys." Craig said to everyone on the roof.

Rebecca said, "None taken."

"That's not very nice, Craig." Nicky told him.

"Fuck you." The big conduit responded to Craig's words.

"Hey, woah. Hold on a second,... You're white, Nicky?" Craig asked the little skeleton.

"How about enough with the racism, and let's get to business, alright?" Nicky told Craig.

Rebecca looked towards her while saying, "She's right. We have a lot of work to be done, and little time to do so. We are going to be taking this city for ourselves. But before we can even get started, I have to see the full potential all of you have.".

"That wouldn't happen to include me, would it?" Felix said, just now getting up and into the conversation.

"About time you got involved in the talking. Yes, it would happen to include you. You're going to have to pull your weight around here. From now on, I ain't nobody's momma." Rebecca told him.

"I hope this doesn't take too damn long." The brute said.

"Don't worry Rich." Rebecca said. "We'll get your brother back if you don't act like a bitch." Rebecca then backed up to make sure everyone heard her. "So then, why don't we get started. FELIX!"

"What?" Felix asked in a nervous tone.

"You first."

"Oh, ok."

Felix walked towards Rebecca, leaving only ten feet of space between them. Everyone else moved to the sides of the building to make room.

"Now,… show me that you're not just a coward. Show something good with your powers." Rebecca told Felix.

Hearing that, Felix concentrated on his left hand. He appeared to be gathering some material from the air around him. After a few seconds of collecting, he formed a white sphere in the palm of his hand, about the size of a basketball.

"Hey bro, careful not to get too excited and get it in her hair." Sebastian said before laughing.

Craig joined in on the laughing, telling Sebastian, "I was thinking the exact same shit."

"You two are… just disgusting." Nicky said to the two teenagers.

"Oh quiet your ass." Craig told her.

"I'm not the one who likes to talk out of their ass, Craig." Nicky replied.

As they kept arguing, Felix aimed his sphere towards Rebecca, and fired a cloud of mist towards her . She allowed herself to be engulfed by the cloud, but after a few seconds, used her own powers to create a powerful burst of air. Strong enough to blow away all of the fog from around her.

"I guess not bad, but you have to come up with something a little more on the offensive." Rebecca said.

Felix replied with, "I'll try to." before walking off to the side.

"You can never do anything that's remotely helpful to anyone. I feel like we should've kicked you out a while ago." the large conduit told Felix.

"Alright, now for you Nichole."

"Huh...oh, ok." Nicky responded with a little confusion.

She walked to the spot around where Felix stood. Nicky felt a little nervous as she had little experience of actual fighting. Her last two opponents were much weaker than her.

"Here we go. Try to do something to from over there." Rebecca told Nicky.

"What?" Nicky asked her.

"I want to see if you can throw something at me. Something like mist, rocks, or even lazers."

"Well…" Nicky said as she tried to think about something she could do without direct contact.

"Do you not have anything? You just a pile of bones or something?"

And that's when it hit Nicky. She let out some kind of wave that allowed her to sense certain material, specifically the bones in everyone around her.

"Well? I don't have all day to stand around." Rebecca told Nicky.

Nicky looked into the skeleton that kept Rebecca standing straight up. It felt like the time she dealt with Elizabeth, and it reminded her of that day. Nicky then went berserk, and screamed, "STAY AWAY FROM ME!".

Rebecca was confused by this, and asked, "What the matter with you?"

Before anyone else could make a comment, Nicky focused heavily on Rebecca's legs. Not paying attention to what she was doing, Nicky heard a huge crunch noise.

"AHHHHHHHHH… AWWWWWWWWWW! DAMN IT!" Rebecca shouted.

Both of Rebecca's legs were broken, and she had fallen onto her rear end. That's when Nicky came to realization of what she had done.

She muttered, "What? Oh,... I'm sorry… I…"

Before another word could come out of Nicky's mouth, Rebecca gathered something in her hand, and pushed Nicky onto her rear end. Rebecca started to heal quickly, fixing her legs. Then she got back up, and walked over to Nicky to tell her, "Don't be sorry over injuring me. Be sorry that you didn't attack me afterwards.".

Nicky then got back up, and walked towards the wall to sit against it. With her off to the side, Rebecca had Craig come up to show off his capabilities. Feeling very fearful after seeing that same image of Elizabeth again, the young girl pulled her knees to her chest with her arms wrapped around her legs. She was not feeling well.

"Alright. Time to show what a real conduit can do." Craig told Rebecca.

"Bring it on kid, I wanna do more than just a warm up for myself." Rebecca said to Craig.

"Hm, 'kay."

Craig put on a smirk as he threw a few wires toward the edge of the building. He pulled hard on them to launch himself at Rebecca. As he got close, she simply ran towards him and kicked his head to the side.

With those two having a longer fight, and both Sebastian and the brute cheering them on, Felix was the only one to notice Nicky's state. Her skull was now face down on her knee caps. He decided to walk over and sit near her. "How are you holding up, there?" he asked.

Nicky lifted her head an inch or two, and turned it slightly towards his direction. She responded to Felix with, "I… don't feel good.".

Even without a face to show emotion, it was obvious how the young girl was feeling. Felix asked, "Not a fun start to being a conduit for you either, huh? Well, I guess no one ever has one these days.".

"Why do you let him treat you like that?"

Felix put on a confused face, muttering, "Huh?".

"Sebastian always treats you like you're weak."

"Oh, yeah. Well… people are just kinda dicks sometimes. You know."

"I guess I do. Kind of."

"You talk a little strange. How old are you?"

"Isn't that a rude question to ask a girl?"

Felix had a look of embarrassment on his face, feeling that he already went too far in trying to make conversation. "Uh, sorry."

Nicky lifted her head further to look directly at Felix. She told him, "It's ok. I'm just playing with you. I'm ten years old."

"I'm fiftee… Wait. You're only ten years old?! And you already have powers?!" Felix said with a shocked expression.

"I think that's what I said." she said very sarcastically.

"No way. How is that possible? I didn't get mine until I hit puberty."

"That's something that everyone wants to hear."

"Sorry, I… I'm not good with people sometimes."

"Well, enough of how anti-social you are. It's time to get some damn food in here." Sebastian said, walking up to the two.

Felix got up and asked, "What? Is there not enough Chinese food?", with sarcasm in his voice.

Sebastian shoved Felix back against the wall, making Nicky stand up to back away a couple of steps. The rope conduit then said, "Our rations have been low, foo. So don't question me about what needs to get done. Along with that, I already told you that puto is also un culo gordo.".

Nicky laughed a little bit, making Sebastian look at her as she said, "You have kind words no matter what language you speak.".

"You understand those words?" Sebastian asked the kid?"

"Only 'culo gordo'."

"Wow, kid. You know way too much about random stuff. Starting to think that you hangin' around us was destiny. You like thirteen, fifteen, or something?"

"She's ten." Felix blurted out.

"I asked the young chica. Not your dumbass."

"He's right. I am ten years old." Nicky told Sebastian.

"Really? Well, it must have been fun for you kid. Especially being one of the suburban kids."

"What?"

"Never mind, kid. Let's get going, mist boy."

"What?" Felix asked.

"Vamos. Move your stupid ass!"

The two conduits then went off to get some food and supplies, jumping off the side of the building and running as fast as they could. Nicky moved over towards Rebecca, who looked a bit down as she sat on a chair. She grabbed a glass soda bottle next to the chair, popped the lid open to have a sip, and just laid back on the chair. Rebecca noticed Nicky coming her way, and looked straight at her. They talked for some time about their current situation, and ended up discussing a plan that Rebecca had put together over her time in the city. She wanted to go into the sewers to travel undetected through Olympia. She wouldn't tell Nicky why, just that it would decide the fate of the city.

* * *

Two days had now passed since Nicky abandoned Mike and Alvin, the group of devious conduits were headed into the sewer with Rick leading the way. No one enjoyed the smell of course, with Felix, Craig and Sebastian all feeling a slight case of nausea. Nicky however, couldn't smell anything, then Rebecca and Rick had already grown used to the fragrance.

"How far do we have to travel through this?" Craig asked with irritation in his voice.

"Some distance. Now shut up, and quit complaining before I make you bathe in the sewage." Rick told Craig.

"I'd say that I miss my nose, but I'm really glad I don't have to smell this." Nicky randomly put out there.

"Good for you, lil' Miss Undead. Good for you." Sebastian told Nicky.

They traveled down the sewage tunnel for about half an hour before they hit their first stop. Rick lifted a manhole open, and got up out of the sewer to check the area. He looked down at everyone to tell them the situation.

"There's a few D.U.P. around. Maybe three or four." Rick whispered to the group.

"Good. Everyone get ready. We're going in and out as fast as possible. We need to destroy this place, that way the D.U.P. won't have a chance against us."

Everyone started climbing up the ladder, to get up top. Nicky looked at the place that Rebecca was talking about. As it turned out, it was the city's substation just across the street from them. It was surrounded by trees, fog, and was guarded by four D.U.P. soldiers. Rebecca started running towards the substation, with everyone else sneaking up to the area. Craig and Sebastian took to the left, while Rick, being followed by Nicky and Felix stayed to the right. As Rebecca ran she somehow just disappeared from view. Her footsteps could still be heard though.

"What just happened?" Nicky whispered.

"Shush kid. She turned herself invisible." Rick whispered back to her. "When you have a lot of time to yourself, you can learn a whole lot more about what you can do."

"Huh. I was always told that too much time to myself would make me go insane."

"Well… they're not wrong. Don't tell Rebecca I said that."

Rebecca became visible again right behind a D.U.P. soldier. She grabbed him quickly by the top of his head and bottom of his jaw before a strong burst of air forced his head to move. Snapping his neck in the process, Rebecca quickly started to run from her position as the other soldiers spotted her.

"It's her! Everyone spread out and take her down!" A female soldier said.

The two other soldiers started firing their assault rifles as the rest of the gang came charging in. One soldier shot a cluster of concrete at Craig, while Sebastian ran around and threw rope towards that same soldier. Craig dodged the rocks as Sebastian got a grip on the soldier and threw him towards the ground. When that soldier landed on the ground, Rick ran by him and kicked him in the face. Another soldier threw a huge cluster of concrete shards at Rick, tossing him back into the street.

"Ah, crap." Rick said in a pained voice as he tried to get back up.

Nicky ran behind one of the transformers to hide. She tried to get into position to see if she could get a shot at one of the soldiers. Unfortunately, one of the two soldiers left jumped behind Nicky.

"Stand down, bio-terrorist!" the soldier yelled at her.

Nicky tried to run away, but the D.U.P. soldier tossed a small cluster of concrete shards at the young conduit. The impact pushed her right into a step-down transformer, causing her to get stuck and create a disruption in the flow of electricity. Megawatts started flowing through her, with Nicky shaking uncontrollably. Then electric equipment all over the city lost power or popped from too much power. The small conduit increased in size as she struggled to get out. In the process, a wire got caught onto her spine, causing serious pain.

"OH MY GOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHD!" she screamed.

In that same moment, both of the remaining soldiers started groaning in pain. They fell to the ground, shouting out random slurs as some strange steam and smoke started coming from their bodies. The rest of the gang just watched as both the only resistance in the area died in front of them, and the city's power went out.

"My god. They're… they're…" Felix muttered with a bit of shock in his voice.

"Oh, you know they dead." Craig blurted out.

"They're dead, yes. But I want to know who, or what did this." Rebecca said as walked over to tap one of the soldier's bodies with her foot. "How did this happen?"

Nicky just somehow busted out of the metal holding her to the transformer, and got onto her feet. She walked back over to the group of conduits, feeling a bit stronger, and taller.

"What happened?" Nicky asked everyone as she walked towards them.

"Woah, shoot." Craig said with a look of surprise.

"Damn. I knew there was something l liked about this one." Sebastian said to the others with a big smile.

"Well if I knew she could that, this plan would have gone by differently." Rebecca told the group as she walked towards Nicky. "So, why have you been holding out on us?"

Nicky looked at Rebecca, trying to make a confused look on an expressionless face. "What do you mean 'holding out'?", Nicky asked.

"I mean your powers. What are you, five years old?"

"She actually ten." Felix whispered in her ear.

"Well that's… Wait. Really?" Rebecca said.

"What? Is she a powerful conduit? Is she with the police?" Craig asked.

"What kind of questions are you asking? Are you retarded or something?" Rick asked Craig with sarcasm in his voice.

"Hey, don't dis' on retarded people. But anyway, what's up with her?" Sebastian said.

"She's… quite a good conduit. I just wanna see how good." Rebecca told everyone.

She walked up to Nicky, and grabbed a hold of her right arm tight. "Ow. Why are you doing that?" Nicky asked.

"I want to know what you can do. I wanna see… the hell?" Rebecca said as she became a slight bit shocked.

Looking into Nicky's eye sockets, she noticed a gray light come from them. Everyone looked at Nicky as her eyes glowed with strange, gray energy. The energy traveled from head, down through her arm. With Rebecca holding that arm, the energy was absorbed by her. She felt stronger in that instance.

"What are you hiding?" Rebecca asked Nicky.

Feeling a little nervous, Nicky just said, "I'm not hiding…", right before Rebecca tested her powers.

Rebecca tried to shoot out a small burst of air out of her other hand. Instead of a breeze coming out, she blasted air out so hard that it caused a sonic impact on some of the once intact substation equipment. The blast from her hand also threw Rebecca back, leaving Nicky standing on her own.

"Holy mother of… God, that was nice." Rick said to Rebecca as he walked over to help her back up.

"I knew this little undead gangsta had some potential." Sebastian said, pointing at Nicky.

Craig went ahead and walked right up to Nicky, saying, "Well then, if you got powers like 'dat, I wanna taste of it too.".

"Dear god, you have no idea how creepy that sounds." Felix told Craig.

"Would you shut up? I swear, now I know why Sebastian said ya's a little bitch.", Craig said before he grabbed a hold of Nicky's hand. "Now gimme some.".

"What?" Nicky asked Craig.

"Don't screw with me, girl. I want some of that power you gave her."

Rebecca walked over to Craig, and grabbed his other arm. She twisted it, and forced his other hand to let go of Nicky.

When Rebecca got Craig onto his knees, she said to him, "No respect for women? Or do you just have no self respect? Either way, I'm not letting this go by so easy.".

Rebecca then kicked the teenager, knocking him face first into the ground. After doing so, the group heard noises. The sounds of random twigs breaking, along with slight breezes. All of them got ready to fight, fearing the worst was about to happen for what they did. When the noises stopped for just a moment, a random man shot from out of the trees, landing right in front the group. A tall young man with pale skin, wearing a black hoodie, camo jeans, and combat boots. He stood up, took his hood off, and started walking towards Rebecca. The man stopped about seven feet from Rebecca, and gave her a smirk.

"So are you the top freak here?" He asked in a slight Afrikaans accent.

"Who's the one asking?" Rebecca responded with.

"Just another man on the run from the police. Well, it's pretty obvious that you're head of the honcho here. I hope you're one of the nice kind of freaks."

"Why are you calling us freaks?"

"You're not one of us? People who have the power to cause random chaos?"

"Yes, we're all conduits here."

"Good, because I wanted to talk business with more fellow freaks. By the way, I prefer the word freak because it sounds like we're much different from the other asshole in the world."

"Prefer to be called a freak?" Sebastian added in.

"Keep quiet." Rebecca told Sebastian.

"I prefer freak because I'd rather be compared to a circus performer than a water funnel. But anyway, I wanted to meet you all. Maybe convert you to a better cause." the man said.

"What are you? Are you a preacher of a new found religion?"

"I've lost faith in any god long before I knew I had the gift. I have a different idea in mind. Simply bring together everyone, and build something."

"Wait. What did you mean when you said 'us'?" Nicky asked.

"What was that?" The man asked back.

"Do you have a group nearby or something?"

"Hmm? Oh yes, I do have a small group at the moment. Two of them are supposed to…"

"We got here as fast as we could." A familiar face said.

Craig looked at the three conduits, and got right back up. He already felt like a fight was about to happen.

"It's the stylish hobo, again " Nicky said.

"Is that what you like to call him? Cute name, but I doubt your friend is back for having tea with us." Rebecca said to Nicky.

"I didn't think we were going to cross paths again for a while, kid. Sure as hell didn't expect you to help them destroy power to a whole town full of innocent people." Michael told Nicky.

"Oh, not just only did she help. She destroyed the power and killed two D.U.P. troops in one go. Nicky has potential. Potential you couldn't understand.

" Rebecca said to Michael.

"Potential for what? To be a killer like you?" Alvin asked Rebecca.

"Would you shut up already?!" Craig shouted at Alvin.

Craig then ran straight at Alvin, getting ready to strike him with wires. As he got close, Alvin got ready to fight him. But then the tall man in a hoodie came in, and just knocked him out. When he slammed his fist into Craig's face though, it sounded like metal hitting bones. Nicky noticed this, and let out a sensing pulse. She noticed the familiar glow of conduits. Yellow nervous systems, but Michael, Alvin and this new man had an orange aura around them. Along with that, the nervous system in the new man did not connect to the arm that hit Craig. The arm appeared to be non-existent.

"Now, if we can get beyond these squabblings, I hope that we can calm things." the man said.

"I don't know about that." Rebecca told him.

"I don't think we can do anything to convince. They're too far gone at this point." Michael told the man.

"We're wasting time here! Why don't you take what you're selling to another vendor, because we're not interested." Rick blurted out.

"You didn't hear all I have to offer, but if you insist…"

Before anyone else thought of their actions, Rick ran straight into the man. Rick picked him up, and forced him against a tree. Alvin was about to run and help, but then Sebastian threw out a rope that grabbed him by the ankle, tripping him. Michael had had his eyes fixed on Rebecca, who ran towards him. Nicky and Felix just watched as chaos ensued.

"Maybe we should try and avoid this." Felix suggested to Nicky.

Nicky thought a little bit about that decision, right before reminding herself of what she had been through in the past week. She looked at Felix and told him, "No, we shouldn't.".

"Why not? Does this stuff not scare you?"

"It does scare me. I've never been in a fight like this. But abandoning people is not something I like doing."

"This conflict is too much for us to get involved in. Plus, my powers wouldn't do much in this situation."

"You know what? You need to quiet."

As Nicky told Felix to keep to himself, a grayish aura started to form around her. Felix started getting fearful of it, but Nicky did not notice what was happening to her. Her skin was returning, her hair got back into place, and for the first time Felix could look into her eyes. A grey dress formed on her, going down over her knees. Though her human form returned, she did not appear to be the same child that was taken into the woods. Because of her powers, Nicky appeared to have aged.

"Nicky, you're…" Felix barely said.

"You need to quit being so scared. Be brave."

Nicky then ran into the fight, getting ready to attack. As she looked at everyone though, she started to have second thoughts on her choice to join Rebecca.

* * *

 _ **[Nicky's thoughts]**_

 _Wait a second, I'm about get into my first real fight! Thinking about what Felix told me, maybe I could run out of this. I never asked to be part of this conflict, I wanted to live with father. But if I stay, who would I fight for? What would I fight for? My freedom… or my power?_

* * *

 **Square: Try nothing**

Run away with Felix, and avoid the conduit conflict.

 **Triangle: Try to be Good**

Rejoin Mike, and help him defeat Rebecca.

 **Circle: Try to be Bad**

Keep alongside Rebecca, and kick Mike's ass.

* * *

 **[Authors Notes]**

Hey everyone, long time no post. Over a year later, and I'm almost done with [Part 1] of "InFamous Lost Child". Sorry again for the long wait, never have the time to focus on my stuff nowadays. The choice I put in for this chapter was mainly because of how close the last choices votes were. That, and the fact that most of the choices up until now were good, so even that shocked me. If anything, it makes for a good confirmation that you all are good with Nicky going down this path. Either way, review this chapter, and "make your choice". PEACE!


	11. Chapter 11

**Circle Try to be Bad** Selected

* * *

 **[Nicky's thoughts]**

 _Why am I even listening to Felix at all? He's too chicken to do anything remotely helpful. If I ran with him, I'd end up hating myself. I have to stay here, and help Rebecca. She may be cruel, but at least with her, I can get stronger. And maybe when I'm stronger, I can be with father again._

* * *

The young girl ran towards Rebecca, getting ready to attack. As Nicky got close, Rebecca shot a burst of air towards Mike's face. Mike formed thick, bone structures on his arms, blocking any effect of Rebecca's powers. Then he ran towards her, getting ready to punch her face. As he got close though, Nicky stopped running, and focused on Mike's legs. Putting in those same horrible thoughts back in her head, she broke Michael's legs. As the crunching could be heard, Mike fell over, letting out a pained groan. Rebecca seized this opportunity to knee his face as it fell, making Mike roll over on the ground.

"Well, about time. Thanks for the save Ni…" Rebecca said before she saw Nicky's flesh and blood form.

"I think a word like that applies to Craig before it does me." Nicky told her.

"How… your skin?"

"What? Have you never seen a naked skeleton before?" Nicky said to Rebecca before looking at her hand. She was a bit freaked out, noticing she now has her skin back. Then she said, "So that's why I'm so cold…"

Rick was thrown towards Nicky's direction, cutting her conversation short. Rebecca grabbed Nicky from underneath her armpit, and swung her out of the way. As Rick landed, he quickly tried to get back up. The man with the accent ran over to him, and knocked him out before he could do so. After that, the man in the hoody looked towards Nicky and Rebecca.

"You sure you want this instead of a peaceful talk? Because I'm done fighting people for no reason." he told them.

"I'm sure we all do, ASSHOLE!" Craig said from the top of a large tree branch.

He threw a few wires at the man's heavy arm to hold it steady. As Craig got a grip of him, Rebecca got ready to attack him. She ran towards the man, but Michael got back up and charged into her back. The man in the hoody kept pulling on the wires, forcing Craig to push hard against the tree branch he was on.

"Get off of me!" Rebecca told Michael as she twisted her body.

Getting out of his grip, Rebecca then kicked Michael in the throat. It got him out of the way for the moment. She ran back towards the man in the hoody. Before she could make it, the wires holding him all broke, and Craig ended up forcing himself backwards. With his recent head injuries, Craig felt drained, and was helpless as he fell to the ground. Nicky looked towards his direction, right before he fell onto broken substation equipment. Nicky started breathing heavy, not being able to process what she just witnessed.

"NOOOOO!" Alvin yelled before Sebastian punched him and threw him off to the side.

"What no? The hell were you screaming…?" Sebastian said before turning around.

He ran straight towards Craig, but was punched in the head by the man in a hoodie. The man started beating him, making sure Sebastian was out of commission. While both Sebastian's beating and Rebecca's fight were happening, Nicky ran over to Craig. She pushed over some metal parts that weren't super heavy, which revealed what she feared. There was a piece of metal sticking through him. Looking at it made her sick, causing her to throw up. Craig noticed her, and tried his best to say something.

"Hey,... Nicky." Craig said, as blood started to come out of his mouth.

"Huh?" Nicky muttered.

"I want… you to… [*cough] kick… Mike's… ass for me. Will… ya..?" Craig told her before dropping dropping his head to the side, and stopping his breath.

Nicky heard him, and wanted to do his dying wish. Then she thought to herself about not listening to him, like she did before when saving a man. Nicky grabbed a hold of Craig's hand, and focused on her hand. The grey aura surrounded her again, putting energy into Craig's hand. Wires started to wrap around Nicky's hand to keep it attached to Craig's. From his hand, wires also started to wrap around his arm. They then went around his body, wrapping his other arm, his legs, his torso, and lastly his head. Nicky's eyes started glowing bright, causing a burst of energy to flow straight into Craig's body, making him twitch. Noticing what she was doing, the man in the hoodie went up to Nicky, and ripped her out of Craig's wired grip.

"Ow. Let go of me." Nicky told him.

"Kid, you can't do this." The man told Nicky.

"Can't do what?"

"Hang around people who could possibly turn on you the moment it's convenient."

With the man lecturing Nicky, Sebastian darted towards him with a pissed off look on his bruised face.

"Puto, she doesn't belong to you. Get yo hands off her." he said to the man.

Sebastian then pulled out knotted ropes from both of his hands, and threw them at the man with Nicky. The man wrapped his arm around Nicky, and jumped to the side to get them out of the way of the ropes. He rolled over on his back before tossing Nicky a few feet over. After that, the rope followed the man in the hoodie, and tightened around his legs. With his grip on him, Sebastian swung the man against a tree. Following that, he swung him against another tree, right before throwing towards Alvin's direction.

"That's what you get." Sebastian said.

He walked up to Nicky, who was lying on her back. Sebastian put out his hand to help her up, to which she said, "Does everybody want to grab me today?".

"Be glad you weren't born in my hometown. They do more than just grab."

She grabbed his hand, allowing him to help the young conduit back up. They both looked towards Rebecca and Michael, who were still fighting each other. Rebecca appeared to be weakened, due to Michael's bone armor giving him the upper hand.

"Well, it looks like we gotta help her out. I'm a little exhausted from throwing that one puto around, but I'm still game. What about you?" Sebastian asked Nicky.

"I'm up for it." Nicky responded.

The two conduits gave each other a head nod, and ran towards the fight. Rebecca fired a burst of air towards Mike's face again, but he crossed his arms over his head, blocking the blast. He then charged into her, knocking her against a tree. He walked up to her, getting ready to knock her out, but was stopped when Nicky jumped onto his back.

"What the…? Nicky! Get off of me!" Michael yelled at her.

Michael moved all over the place, jumping up and down, swinging side to side. Nothing could get the girl off of him. After a few seconds though, her grip did loosen up, so she grabbed his head as a last resort. After grabbing his head, she got dizzy, and felt a strong headache. Random images flowed into her brain, some including massive blue explosions.

"Hold still, will ya." Sebastian told Michael.

Sebastian threw out some rope to grab a hold of Michael by the arms. Following that, Rebecca got back up and forced her palm against Mike's face, letting out a small burst of air in the process. Michael was now very weak, allowing for Sebastian to force him towards the ground. After doing so, Nicky, with hands still hanging on his head, received a strange vision.

See saw a tall man, who appeared to be walking towards her. The man pulled his belt from around his waist, and whipped it against a carpet floor.

"I'm sorry… I'm sorry…" she heard a little boy's voice say.

"You're not sorry until I say you are." the man said in response.

The man then whipped the metal part of his belt across what Nicky thought was her chest. Then she realized she was seeing what a little boy saw. What Michael saw.

"Please, stop…" the little boy cried.

"Shut up and take it like a god damn man."

Nicky felt tears coming, and forced herself to let go.

"Poor… poor man." Nicky whispered to herself.

"Alright. I say we take this one back with us. He feels like he could be useful if we keep him around." Rebecca said.

"You sure? I feel like he won't be a big fan of us." Sebastian told Rebecca.

"Don't tell me how to run this group. I am in charge here."

"Can you at least tell this guy to help out every once in awhile?" Sebastian said as he threw out rope.

The rope he threw went around a tree, and grabbed a hold of someone. Sebastian started dragging out the individual, revealing the person to be Felix. As he brought him out, Sebastian had a rather irritated look on his face.

"Where the hell were you, lazy?" Sebastian asked Felix.

"I… I… didn't know if I could help…" Felix muttered.

"You could have at helped out a little. Nicky is real young, but at least she tried something. Thanks to her, we got this man on the ground." Rebecca said to Felix.

"What are you going to do with me?" Felix asked.

"I think we should kill you." Rick said as he got close to the group.

"Well about time you woke back up." Rebecca said to Rick. "But why do you say kill him?"

"He been nothing but trouble, and never helps out for anything." Rick told Rebecca.

"Hey, woah. That harsh. It's not like he killed one of us. If anything, why don't we exile him?" Sebastian suggested to the group.

"Because we can't risk that. He'll either end up dead, or rat us out. We have to either kill him, or keep him with us." Rebecca said.

"Keep him?! Are you serious?" Rick asked Rebecca.

"Hey, screw you! Suggesting we kill him." Sebastian told Rick.

"Watch it before I kill you, too." Rick said back.

"Hey, what you think?" Sebastian asked Nicky.

"What?" Nicky asked in response.

"You think we should kill or keep Felix?" Sebastian asked.

"Oh, trying to use the little girl?" Rick said with sarcasm.

"Shut up white boy, I'm sixteen. If anyone's the creepy guy, it's your smelly ass." Sebastian told Rick.

As the two argued, Nicky thought to herself: What should they do with Felix?

* * *

 **[Nicky's thoughts]**

 _Well, this is great. After ignoring Felix, now I end up with helping in deciding what happens to him. Why is it always down to me? Maybe we could be nice, and I could help him be stronger so he can help. Fog could provide good camouflage. Then again, he might be better off put out of his misery. Or… I convince everyone to allow me to share the purple rock with him._

* * *

 **Square: Be Greedy**

Have Felix live, but only if he gives you powers.

 **Triangle: Be Friendly**

Allow Felix to live, and keep him close to the group.

 **Circle: Be Deadly**

Kill off Felix, and show the rest of the group that you don't tolerate weakness.

* * *

 **Author's Notes**

Hey everybody, brought in another quick chapter. Yes, I know it's short, but I really want get all the choices together quickly so I can get all the kinks in for [Part 2] of this random fan fic. Also for those wanting to put in a character, yes I'm still accepting OCs for the story. Look in my Bio/Profile to find the requirements of character description. 'Til next chapter, please hurry and choose a karmic decision. PEACE!


	12. Chapter 12

**Triangle: Be Friendly** Chosen

 **Extreme Healing** Power added.

 **Big Skeleton** Power added.

* * *

 **[Nicky's thoughts]**

 _Maybe I shouldn't do that with the rock. We should keep Felix with us, too. People like us are already being hunted, so we need to stick together._

* * *

Nicky walked over to Felix, who was sitting on the ground to await his fate. As she got closer, he got real nervous. Noticing this, both Sebastian and Rick stopped arguing, and looked at Nicky. As the young girl stopped in front of him, she reached her hand towards the cowardly individual. In response, he covered his face with his arm, expecting something bad to happen. After a second, he realized that his fear was pointless. Her hand was in front of him to help get back on his feet. He took her hand, and with all her strength, she helped him up.

"I guess ya got the little girl on your side. Big whoop." Rick said to Sebastian. "Do you agree with either of them on this, Rebecca?"

Rebecca then walked towards Felix, making Nicky back away from him. With her right hand, she grabbed Felix by the collar and said, "This little girl just got you another chance to stick around. If I were you, I wouldn't take it for granted. You better use it to toughen up. Or else next time I might kill you myself, just to get it over with.", before pushing him backwards and walking back towards Michael.

"Are you kidding me? This is full of crap. How are you going to allow this just because of a kid?" Rick asked Rebecca.

"The same reason I'm helping you find your brother! I'm not a complete, cold hearted bitch." Rebecca said in response.

Rick walked up towards Nicky with anger in his eyes. Spotting that, Sebastian walked over to get in between them.

"What you walking up to the little kid for?" Sebastian asked.

"None of your business. Now out of my way." Rick said.

"You walkin' up to her like that, it is my business!"

"Screw off. This doesn't concern you."

"All of you knock it off! Some one help me get this guy so we can go. D.U.P will be on our asses any minute now."Rebecca told the group.

"I'm surprised they ain't on us already." Sebastian said as he pushed Nicky a little to get her moving.

Rick then walked over to Rebecca to help get Michael. Nicky looked over at Michael who was now unconscious. She felt worry for him after seeing things inside his head. Then she looked towards where Alvin and the other man were, but no one was there. It appeared that they had left, or so she thought.

"Let go of him!" Alvin shouted.

Before he could look behind him, Rick was stabbed in the back by Alvin. With Rick in pain, Alvin gained the opportunity to shoot a huge sliver at Rebecca. The sliver hit her gut, causing great discomfort for her. As Alvin tried to grab Mike, Sebastian hit the back of his head with rope. The force knocked him over towards Rebecca, who punched him in the gut, making him fall by Rick. With Alvin right there on the ground, Rick grabbed his neck. He started strangling him, making Alvin go blue.

"What are doing? Stop it! You're hurting him too much!" Nicky shouted at Rick.

"That's the point of this, kid!" Rick shouted back.

Nicky started to cry a little, and ran up to Rick to try and stop him. He only used one hand push her back, and used his other hand to cause rot to form on Alvin. In a few short seconds, Alvin went from blue to green, and would breath no more. Nicky got up and looked at Alvin. Seeing him in such a horrible state, she quickly turned around to cry into her hands. Rebecca just gave a little smirk at what Rick did, while Sebastian just crossed him arms and stared blankly.

"What are you crying about?" Rick asked Nicky.

"It's her first time seeing someone kill. And in such a sloppy fashion." Rebecca told Rick.

"It would have been better if she stayed out of my way!"

"Would you quit blaming everything on her?" Sebastian told Rick.

"Maybe if she'd get with the program. You know what? Since no one else wants to, I'll set her straight myself." Rick said to the group.

Rick walked towards Nicky, being stopped again by Sebastian.

"You really want to keep doing this?" Sebastian asked him.

Felix also got up to stand with Sebastian, to keep Rick from Nicky. Sebastian noticed Felix before looking Rick in the eyes.

"You two morons." Rick told them.

He then punched Sebastian in the gut, before shoving him to the ground. Felix took a step back before Rick pushed him to the side. With them out of his way, he walked to Nicky, and grabbed her by the arms, forcing her to look at him.

"There's something you have to understand, Nicky." Rick told her.

Hearing those words triggered something inside of her. It reminded her again of the last time she saw Elizabeth. She remembered when she said, "Understand Nicky, your father loves me, and I love him.". It made her furious, making her get up. She changed drastically, her skin turning into a gray aura to surround her huge skeleton body which now reached nearly seven feet. Rick lost his grip of Nicky's arms as she grabbed him by the neck. He grabbed her bony arm, trying to release himself. It was useless as Nicky lifted him up, and started walking slowly with him. Rebecca gave a little smile as she moved to get out of Nicky's way. Nicky then shoved Rick and held him against a tree, bringing her skull close his face.

"No! You understand!" Nicky said with a strange voice. "No one is going to grab me like that again! I am not anyone's toy! YOU UNDERSTAND!".

"You going to kill him? Rebecca asked.

"What?" Nicky said as she turned her skull a bit.

"Are you going to kill him? It's a simple yes or no question."

Nicky looked back at Rick, and felt for a second that she was looking at the man in the woods. The man that killed Jacob for killing his family. She couldn't help but feel pity for the poor man, as he too was missing family.

"No." Nicky said as she let go of Rick.

Rick took a moment to catch his breath before helping Rebecca grab a hold of Michael. Nicky just sat against a tree with her skull laying down on her bony palms. She began to shrink back down to size, with her skin and grey dress reforming over her. Nicky started crying again, thinking about all that had happened in such a short time. Seeing her like that, Felix walked over to sit next to her.

"I'm sorry you had to see all this. I can understand how you're feeling right now." Felix said.

"Are you sure about that?" Nicky asked him.

"I may be a chicken sometimes, but even I've been through a lot."

* * *

 _ **[Comic Scene]**_

 _Felix told me a little bit about what happened before he became part of this group. How he had a little sister who he said he saw part of her in me. How his arm became partly numb from a bullet wound. We then talked about how we ran away from our homes. He ran because the D.U.P. were chasing after him, but I ran because of a woman who was taking my father away from me. I kept crying, but he tried his best to keep me comfort. After a little bit, Rebecca had us all get ready to go. Sebastian wanted to grab Craig, but Rebecca told him that it would be useless to try pull him without tools._

 _We came back the next day, but he was nowhere to be found. Finding him would have had to wait though, as Rebecca told us would should take control of the city. After three weeks of strong push, we shoved the D.U.P. out of Olympia. The city was ours, and the people inside would either obey, or be dealt with. Just as the incident on the East Coast nearly ten years ago, they quarantined the city. Keeping anyone from getting in or out. But it suited us fine for the moment, as we found out there was more of our kind within the city. New friends we could make, and more power we could gain. I am glad for some of the choices I've made, but I hope not all of them mean death for a lot of people._

 _People always talk about how our choices change who we are. About how it decides how others view us. I feel that it's all true, every word of it. I also believe that everyone can also see inspiration in the choices of others. And I wonder… if there is anyone… who has taken inspiration from my choices._

 _ **[End of Comic Scene]**_

* * *

"So do you have something to tell me,... or should I just move on to your friends?" Augustine told a young man in a Jean jacket.

"I'm a conduit!" he said to her.

"What?"

"I said I'm a conduit, alright. I caught it a second ago from that guy."

"Oh, you caught it. Very funny." she told him before having another shard of concrete stab his leg. Augustine walked away from the young man who was in pain, and towards an older woman. She asked her, "Hello. Betty, is it?", before stabbing her leg with a shard of concrete.

The Jean jacket wearing young man passed out as he saw the old woman dropped to the ground in pain. This one seems to be having a rough start at being a conduit, but has chosen to start down a better path than most.

* * *

 **[Author's Notes]**

Hey everybody, thanks for reading this far into my fan fiction of "InFamous". A shout out to all those who've sent in OC's, and yes, I am still accepting some into my story. After this chapter, I will be making slight changes to my character detail list. There's going to be a whole lot of crap I will be introducing in [Part 2] of this tale. Here are confirmed powers you will see in the next bit of Nicky's story:

 _Bone/Conduit Battery_

 _Bone Armor_

 _Air Compression (Air bending?)_

 _Gases/Toxicity_

 _Rope_

 _Mist/Steam_

 _Platinum_

 _Wire_

 _Glass_

 _Mirror (Yes I said mirror.)_

 _Plasma/Ball Lightning_

 _Mind Sway_

 _Radio Wave (Not just what your alarm clock picks up.)_

 _Heat_

 _Blood_

 _Black Hole (A little OP?)_

 _Water Compressor (Or water bender. Whatever you want to call it.)_

 _Magnetism (Not to be confused with Alden's powers.)_

 _Coin Toss (Hope I get heads.)_

 _Boom Box (The Sound of Music, bitch!)_

So those are the powers of confirmed characters to be in the next bunch of chapters. How and when will they all be introduced? Well… it's going to be lots of fun on my part. Also, please do leave reviews on how everything looks in the story. I do enjoy some criticism.

P.S.

For a very late response to a couple of reviews, I'd like to say that I've never watched "Powers", or a single whole episode of "One Piece". And my cannibal conduit's powers were based off of "Prototype".

Oh, and another thing. Here's some cheap ass credits, and a treat.

* * *

 _ **[**_ _ **Cheap Ass Credits]**_

 **Writer:** CAJ

 **Producer:** CAJ

 **Current Cast (Listed by appearance):**

 **Nicole Fisher (Nicky):** CAJ

 **Elizabeth:** CAJ

 **Jack (Nicky's Father):** CAJ

 **Jacob (Battery):** CAJ

 **Hector (Cannibal):** CAJ

 **Lucy Kuo (Ice Ice Baby): Property of InFamous**

 **Alden (Iron Man): Property of InFamous**

 **Cole MacGrath (The Beast): Property of InFamous**

 **Craig (The Wire):** CAJ

 **Alvin (Woody):** CAJ

 **Michael (Bonehead):** akoslows

 **Augustine (Rock Queen): Property of InFamous**

 **Rick (Rots):** Ice Rage

 **Bruce (Rick's Brother):** Ice Rage

 **Carol (Rick's Girlfriend):** CAJ

 **Rebecca (Airhead):** CAJ

 **Sebastian (Rope):** CAJ

 **Felix (Mist):** phell down

 **Seth (Platinum/Steel Fist):** The Enclave Assassin

 **Delsin (Smoker): Property of InFamous**

 **DON'T OWN INFAMOUS OR ANY OF IT'S CHARACTERS. DON'T OWN ANY OF THE CHARACTERS ABOVE THAT DON'T HAVE MY NAME BY THEM. HAVE A LOVELY NON-COPYRIGHTED DAY!**

* * *

 **[Switch to Empire City]**

On top of the large building of scrap metal, Cole simply sat criss cross on the floor. He had all kinds of wires connected to him in an attempt to somehow push himself to the limits of his immeasurable powers. Five feet behind him was a puddle of tar, caused by a pipe above it leaking. A bunch of tentacles formed from the puddle, tossing tar around the room. Cole turned around to see what was going on, taking all of the wires off of him. He noticed what was happening, and easily recognized the situation.

Two individuals formed from the puddle. A woman in a torn red hoodie and tight black pants. The other a teenager wearing red jeans, and a sleeveless half shirt under a red tinted black jacket. Before either of these two could say a word, Cole walked up to the woman and kissed her. Cole and the woman wrapped their arms around each other, and then separated their lips from one another's.

"It's about damn time." Cole said.

"Well Cole, I did take plenty of my sweet time finding out about a few events. Both current and future." the woman told Cole.

Cole let go of her and took two steps back. He gave a stern look before asking, "What did you find out?".

"I found that a whole lot of conduits are covering the West coast of the U.S., and seem to be migrating towards both Oregon and Washington." She told him.

"I guess that sounds interesting, but how the hell does that help us over here."

"I'm not yet finished. As it turns out, the D.U.P. have also taken note of this, and are planning on setting up a base in Seattle."

"So they're taking over the home of the Space Needle. So what? It feels like this whole trip of yours was a waste of time." Cole said as he turned around to walk away.

"The rock bitch will be there."

"What?" Cole questioned as he turned back around.

"And so will the boy." the teenager said.

 **[End]**


	13. Chapter 13

_Associate with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation; for it is better to be alone than in bad company._

 _-George Washington_

* * *

 **[Part 2: Migration]**

After some time from the destruction of New Marais, the army of new, more destructive conduits took over the entire East Coast. Any and every human being in their path was reduced to less than ashes. Even with so many lives taken to awaken more conduits, and increase their own abilities, it was never enough. They looked to the rest of the U.S. for more. They traveled along the Northern part of the country, heading into Michigan. Nothing in their path was able to stop them.

Destruction arose in Detroit, people everywhere either ran in fear or went guns blazing on the conduits to protect loved ones. A young boy watched as his father ran straight towards the fight with shotgun in hand. The father told his son to run away, but the boy just stood still. Then a woman appeared, covered in ice spikes. She grabbed a hold of the man's head, freezing him solid before shattering him to pieces. The little boy screamed out for his father, but now he was alone. The woman walked up to the little boy, getting ready to kill him too.

As she got close to him, another woman grabbed the father's shotgun, and fired at the ice woman. That woman then grabbed the boy and started running. The running suddenly came to a holt as a huge quake made her trip, and drop the boy. She got onto her hands and knees only to look up and find a horrible sight. The young woman saw the giant creature that destroyed everything on the East Coast. She saw the conduit creature everyone feared. As the powerful monster came closer, she sat up and wrapped her arms around the little boy who started crying. The creature reached out his hand to create a vortex, and absorb them. All the woman could hear at this point was a loud, deathly roar as she closed her eyes.

* * *

A woman then woke up from a horrible dream. She was wearing a tank top and sweats as she got up out of bed. The woman was caught off guard when her roommate walked in wearing about the same getup as her.

"Aw, good. You're awake. I got us a couple of macchiatos." the roommate said.

"Ah, thanks. So are we being sent out today?" the woman asked as she took the drink.

"From what I hear, the transports full of bio-terrorists crashed."

"What?"

"Yeah."

"The transport with the crook and the killer too."

"Well, Augustine recaptured Hank. The others escaped, and have taken root in Seattle."

"Oh god. There's so many people at risk."

"At least we finally get to see some action. Let's get ready Connie."

The two continued talking for a bit, getting themselves ready for the day. They put on D.U.P. armor, and grabbed their fire arms. The two soldiers got into an APC transport, in which they would be taken to a new base. Inside, they were seated with a commander, two other D.U.P. soldiers, and two individuals in unique D.U.P armor. One was a man of African descent, wearing a grey tank top and heavy D.U.P. leggings. Sitting next to him was a young Hispanic woman, wearing a very sleek D.U.P. armor suit along with a shark tooth necklace.

"What's up with these two, Commander Aron?" the roommate asked.

"Huh? Oh, you mean the only two deviants without helmets on this transport? They're a little pet project of Augustine's. A pair of willing bio-terrorist subjects who are going to be put to work." the Commander said.

"Ok."

"Hmm. So how are you two doing?" Connie asked the two conduits.

The man just pretended he heard nothing as he sat back with his arms crossed, and eyelids shut. The young woman simply stared at Connie before looking at her hands that she held together over her knees.

"No need for interactions with bio-terrorists that aren't attacking you, lieutenant. Keep to yourself for the rest of this trip. At least these pieces of work know to." the Commander told Connie.

Constance kept to herself for the rest of the trip, with the one young conduit taking random glances at her. After a long ride, they finally made it to Seattle. One area area of the city, filled with conduit detectors, would become the base of operations for Connie's squad, along with a few other groups. Though they were dealing with bio-terrorist threats within the city, some of the time they spent there was merely put towards guard duty.

"This sucks." the roommate said to Connie.

"What?" Connie asked her.

"I was expecting to see some action. Instead, we're parading around, waiting until somethin' happens."

"You're not the only one disappointed here."

"You were hoping for action too, huh?"

"I was hoping to help in aiding and protecting civilians. Then we get to see smoke bombs get thrown at people."

As they passed by a small restaurant, they could hear a radio station playing on the speakers surrounding it.

"Sweet home, Alabama."

"Kriss Kross will make ya… JUMP! JUMP!"

"Wake me up! Wake me up inside."

"We'll play… anything." a man said on the radio.

After hearing the radio play, a huge explosion occurred on the rooftop of a building nearby Constance. She and her partner felt some of the shock from it, and looked towards the roof it came from. They couldn't see much from their street view other than a big cloud of orange and grey smoke. Along with that, they could hear some of their comrades getting attacked, even witnessing one fall off the side of the building. The two soldiers jumped from the street and onto the rooftop to aid in fending off the attacker. When they got onto the roof, they found themselves a few yards away from a young man, wearing a thin jacket, jeans and a beanie.

"Stand down, bio-terrorist!" Connie's partner told the young man.

The young man then looked at the two soldiers before firing a huge blast of orange and grey smoke at them. Afterwards, the two female soldiers fell down to the ground, rolled over and got back up on their feet.

"This the action you were looking for?" Constance asked her partner.

"Shut up! Let's get this son of a bitch!" she responded with.

The two forced conduits then kept going back into the heated battle. Eventually the D.U.P. soldiers had to fall back and wait for backup. This new bio-terrorist was more of a threat than most found on the West Coast. This battle between the troops and this individual could be seen by many civilians, and felt by others.

* * *

 _ **Two years since "Olympia Hostile Takeover"**_

The battle between bio-terrorists and the D.U.P. in Olympia was long over. Now the people of the city are forced to obey the new ruling class, the conduits, without question. Though it looked grim for the conduits at times, they still found enjoyment with what they had.

On the rooftop of a building nearby trees, three individuals could be seen. Two seventeen year old boys were sat on lawn chairs, one in a wife beater and baggy jeans with the other wearing a heavy snow jacket atop grey cargo pants. Then a little girl about in her preteens, sat criss cross by a crate with a boom box on top playing hip-hop.

"This song reminds me of the night we first met you, Nicky." the boy in a wife beater said.

"What?" the little girl asked.

"Don't remember? Talkin' about how I lean, back when Felix brought you to us."

"Sebastian, think we can change the station sometime soon to see if we can hear the news?" the other boy asked.

"Sure, but hold on Felix. I wanna listen to the rest of this song. Then you can hear the crappy weather reports." Sebastian told him.

A random breeze went through the air, bringing in a strange feeling for Nicole.

"Hmm." Nicky muttered.

"What? You sense something, Nicky?" Sebastian asked her.

The girl looked at Sebastian, and nodded her head as she said, "Yes. A strong conduit... probably.".

"We should go tell Rebecca and Michael. The more people on our side, the better." Felix said.

"I hope they're not arguing again." Nicky said.

"If they are, oh well. I think they might want to hear this. Plus, they listen to you more than anyone." Sebastian told Nicky.

"Well, you're not wrong. Though it's funny how they have gone in and out of being in a relationship."

"It kinda reminds of relationships my brother had. God, I miss that asshole. Enough 'bout my shitty life, let's go."

The three conduits got up and ran to the edge of the building. Sebastian jumped off and used his rope like bullwhips to swing along the light poles, and throw himself onto another rooftop. Felix got onto the edge as he caused a pressurized combustion of steam from his hands, launching him into the air and onto another building. Nicky, following after the two, used her osteokenesis on her leg bones to leap far enough into the air to land on the building Felix got onto. They all ran across the rooftops of Olympia, using a few new skills they learned to get around faster.

* * *

On the way back to the rest of the group, Nicky heard a noise from down below. The sound of screaming around one of the alleyways. Nicky stopped moving and looked down below. Felix and Sebastian noticed this, and ran back towards her.

"What now, Nicky?" Sebastian asked.

"Look down there." Nicky told the others.

As the two boys looked downward, they saw a trio of men trying to mug a young couple at knifepoint. The three conduits looked at one another, and decided that they would take down each of them separately. Sebastian went to one end of the building side, threw a rope towards one of the muggers. The rope wrapped around his waist, and was pulled back to make him lift into the air before falling on his face and chest.

"What the…? Ah crap." One of the muggers said after seeing one get taken down.

Felix shot a small sphere of pressurized steam at another mugger's face. On contact, the

sphere burst open, both burning and pushing the mugger. After that, the mugger ended up unconscious from his head hitting the ground so hard.

"Oh god. God damn it." the last mugger said.

Felix then jumped down from the rooftop into the alleyway. As the mugger saw him, he tried to run away. Before he could make more than a few steps, Felix used his powers to cause a pipe to burst open, making steam hit him. With all that steam hitting him, he absorbed it and threw a huge cloud of mist to instantly block any vision within the alleyway. With fog throwing off his vision, the mugger ran not knowing where he was going. A few yards later, and he hit a bump. A rather big and bony bump.

As the mugger fell backwards, he saw the silhouette of a huge skeleton with sharp, curved bones on majority of the joints. He moved backwards in fear, feeling like he saw a ghost. The skeleton moved towards him, but to his surprise, he only saw a young girl standing about four foot eight walk out of the fog. He rubbed his eyes to see if the fog distorted his vision. When he opened them back up, the little girl was right in front of him. She gave him a stern look as she raised her hand near her face, and snapped her fingers. Not a second afterwards, loud popping noises could be heard from the man's body.

"OWWWWWWWW!" He screamed out.

He turned his head to look at both of his shoulders. The mugger found that his arms were popped out of their sockets. After noticing what she did to him, the man looked back at the little girl to see she had covered her left arm in bones. She pulled it back, then thrusted her fist into his face. The force threw his head back towards the pavement, knocking him out. With all three of the muggers taken down, Nicky, along with Sebastian and Felix, walked over to the young couple that got cornered.

"Oh thanks a lot for that. You guys were amazing." the young woman of the pair said.

"Yeah, I don't know what we would've done." the young man accompanying the woman said.

Nicky stopped a few feet from them, and thrusted her right palm towards the couple. The pair was then pushed back against the wall.

"Maybe if you two idiots were not out past curfew, this would not have happened." Nicky told them with an irritated tone.

"We're sorry." they said to Nicky.

"Sorry isn't good enough. Not get out of here and back to whatever rock you sleep under."

After she said that, Nicky let go of her osteopathic grip of the young couple. When the two had their footing together, they ran as fast as they could. With them gone, Nicky looked straight at Sebastian and told him, "Tie up the morons here, please.".

"Yeah, sure thing." Sebastian said as he jumped down from the building.

He grabbed the muggers together, beginning to tie them up with some of his rope. Felix walked up to Nicky, and tapped her arm with his hand to get her attention. She turned to look at Felix and asked him, "What is it?".

"You feeling alright today?" Felix asked Nicky.

"As alright as I can be."

"I'm just curious, because… I heard you… talking in your sleep."

Nicky backed up a step before saying, "Have you no shame. What were you doing around me while I was sleeping?".

"Nothing really. I… woke up in the middle of the night from a crappy dream. I walked out of my tent to get some water. Th-then I heard wrestling from your tent. I thought you were in trouble."

"Are you sure you weren't the trouble?"

"No. I was hearing you talking to a woman… or something. A scary one I think, too."

"Oh,... that." Nicky said with a soft tone.

"Was it that woman from before…"

"Quite bringing her up!" Nicky interrupted.

"Well,... who was it? Or is it too much to say?" Felix asked trying to be considerate.

"She,... she… was someone else. I don't want to talk about it."

"Ok, ok. I got it."

"What are you two doing? I gotta do all the bull crap while you two just stand around." Sebastian said walking back from tying up the muggers.

"Sorry, I have Felix here distracting me." Nicky said.

"Hey come on. I was just trying to help her." Felix said.

"Whatever. Let's get a move on so that we can tell them what Nicky picked up." Sebastian told them.

"Sounds good." Nicky responded.

The three conduits then looked back at the muggers, and left them to be someone else's playthings. This wasn't the way that they all wanted to live, but it was the path they were stuck on.

* * *

After a few minutes of building hopping and street running, the trio found themselves on the main rooftop hangout. They saw a man sleeping on a couch, with a young boy watching TV sitting next to him. Along with that sight, there was a man and a woman talking with one another, and drinking beer. There was also a pair of women talking, one redhead and the other a blonde. The trio walked up to the drinking pair to get in and talk.

"How is this crap supposed to help our situation?" the man with a beer said to the woman.

"How can it not? If we spread out further than Olympia, we can get more people to join, and take over this god forsaken state." the woman said in response.

"You are crazy. You want to go down towards Vancouver, severe ties to Oregon, and kill countless innocents to do so."

"Yes."

"This kind of stuff is the reason I can't handle a relationship with you. You're so friggin' crazy, and all you want to do is show dominance."

"Um… hey?" Nicky said to the two.

"We gotta tell ya something." Sebastian told them.

The man and woman looked at the three conduits, ending their conversations and putting down the beer.

"Are you still fighting Michael, Rebecca?" Nicky asked the woman.

"Being a smart ass again? We're just talking more about expansion." Rebecca told Nicky.

"What kind of expansion?" Sebastian asked before he chuckled a little.

"Quiet, jackass." Michael told Sebastian.

"Anyway, what we were talking about is heading down south, and finding more fellow conduits. That way, we can take over areas like Vancouver." Rebecca said.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Nicky asked.

"I wouldn't bring it up if I didn't."

"It's not the brightest idea you've had. We're already been struggling to keep our hold of this city." Michael told Rebecca.

As the two adults start arguing again, the boy who was watching TV had gotten up, and woke up the man sleeping on the couch. As the man woke up, the boy pointed to the group who was talking. He nodded his head at the boy and got up to walk towards the group.

"What's going on now?" the man asked Michael and Rebecca.

"Nothing Rick,... but another cheap comic book idea by this woman." Michael responded.

"Ha. That adds emphasis to the nickname I gave her." the boy said.

"Bruce, this isn't the time for jokes." Rick told the boy.

"But she seriously earns the name 'Airhead' since…" Bruce said.

"Shut up you little shit, before I…" Rebecca told Bruce.

"Rebecca. Calm down. Not on the kid, ok." Michael told Rebecca as he set his hand on her shoulder to hold her back.

Rebecca smacked his hand off of her, and told him, "You're the reason I'm in this mood.".

"You did mess up there, 'Bonehead'." Bruce told Michael.

Rick then smacked the back of his head before telling Bruce, "What did I say about the jokes?".

"Ouch. Well, anyway, now that we're all together, we should gather by the TV." Bruce said.

"Bruce, we're not watching another Sci-fi film so you can attempt to wrap your arm around the back of my neck…" Nicky said before Bruce interrupted.

"NO! I mean, what I was hoping is for everyone to see the report."

"Report?" Michael questioned.

"Is it something serious this time?" Rebecca asked.

"It's going to repeat on the channel nine news. It's about the situation at Seattle." Bruce told them.

"Nicky also had something to say. Why don't you hear her first." Sebastian said to everyone.

"Really? What is it this time? Another military patrol for us to have fun with?" Rebecca asked Nicky.

Everyone looked towards the young gal, anticipating what she had to say. The women who were talking to each other noticed everyone else gathering, and joined in on the action. As Nicky was about ready to share her info, a rather dark circle formed near the edge of the roof. It grew from one foot wide to about seven feet wide in a few seconds, allowing for a group of individuals to pass through.

There was a boy, in his late teens, wearing a black hoodie, jeans, and steel toes. He also wore a scarf to cover his mouth and neck. Following him, a young teen in a torn trench coat over a red shirt, with black pants above her boots. She moved her tangled hair, revealing a scar on her left eye, going down her cheek. After them, four others came through, like a tall teen with a flaming punk look, along with white hair in a bun. The rest held both automatic weapons and a punk look as well. Two of them had riot gear, one just had a torn t-shirt and jeans. Most of this crew had a serious look on their face as they peered at Rebecca's group.

"Oh, great. It's you fags again. What do you 'wasps' want, now?" Rick told the group.

"Jackass. Calm down around kids, will ya?" Michael told the decay conduit.

"It's something serious, 'shit head'. Something's coming this way." the scarfed boy said to Rick in a strangely calm voice.

Nicky bumped the tall decay conduit with her elbow, and walked towards the other group. She asked the scarfed boy, "What do you mean 'something's coming'? Is it a powerful conduit? The D.U.P. maybe?".

"No."

"Then what is it?! What have you found since it can't wait for Nicky?!" Rebecca told the group of teens.

"There's a signal that were received through a radio on one of the soldiers we took down. It looks like they're sending in a huge group of attack helicopters." the scarfed teen said.

"What?"

"Nice. Do you think we have this too, Rebecca?" Michael asked her.

"Shut up! Everyone pack your shit, and let's the hell out of dodge!" Rebecca told her crew.

"How the hell are we gonna just pack up and leave because of this little asshole's word? What if he isn't…?" Rick stopped as he started to hear the sound of a propeller in the air.

Everyone then heard the sound of a missile firing off.

"NICKY! LOOK OUT!" Bruce said as he ran to grab her and pull her back.

As both the kid's fell flat on the roof, most of everyone ran from the missile and off the building. Michael and Rick however, ran towards Nicky and Bruce. The armored conduit formed a shield of bone over the two children and himself, while the decay conduit went to the side of him to make a cloud of acidic gases in front. As the missile hit, a small explosion came of it, only knocking back Rick a few feet.

Michael then pulled back and deformed his shield before asking, "You two ok?".

"Yes. Also, thanks for the save Bruce." Nicky said.

Bruce shook a little in fear before muttering, "Yeah, it was no…"

"Come on, let's go kid's. Nicky, on my back. Now." Michael interrupted with.

Nicky got up quick as Michael turned around for her to hop on. As he covered himself in bone armor, the little bone kid jumped onto his back, wrapping her arms around his neck. Rick grabbed his little brother Bruce, and set him on his back as well.

The helicopter that fired off the missile came over head, with one man inside using a megaphone to tell the conduits, "Stand down, bio-terrorists! Surrender, and we promise you a safe trip to Curden Cay Station. Failure to comply…".

Before the man could finish his sentence, a cloud of steam formed around the helicopter. With that happening, both Michael and Rick ran off the edge of the building, and onto the sidewalk. Nicky was able to hold on, but the impact made Bruce slip and lose his grip. He dropped his behind onto the pavement.

"You ok, Bruce?" the Decay Conduit asked.

"My ass hurts." Bruce said in a pained voice.

"You'll be alright."

Rick then grabbed his brother and threw him over his shoulder, and began following the rest of the group.

"Here comes more!" Sebastian told everyone.

Three more attack helicopters were following their trail, firing down upon the conduits. They all ran for their lives, trying to escape the onslaught. Some of them tried to use their abilities against the helicopters, whether it was firing projectiles or other unique capabilities. Two of which were the girls talking on the roof. The blonde girl fired off a colorful stream of lasers with the sound of a musical beat coming from it. As for the redhead she was talking to, clusters of nails came from her hands. Even with a mixture of the two, on top of steam explosions, ropes, gravity waves and other powers used against them, the helicopters were still hot on their tails.

Nicky noticed that all the group was doing was delaying the inevitable. They had to do something to stop the helicopters for good. She took a look at the decay conduit, and shouted, "Hey Rick!".

"What?!" he shouted back.

"Hold out your hand! I have something for ya!"

The green giant gave her an irritated look before putting his empty hand towards her. She grabbed his hand, barely hanging on to Michael with her other arm. The preteen then pumped energy into Rick's arm. As he gathered the energy, nearly tripping multiple times as they were running, he felt a rush go through him.

"Come on 'Steamer', do something." Bruce muttered to Felix in a pained voice.

As the "Steamer" threw an explosive sphere at one of the helicopters, Rick threw a sphere of his own. As the first sphere detonated, it caused the other sphere to go off. The steam sphere blinded and tossed one of the helicopters onto a building to the side. The sphere that the decay conduit threw made a cloud of acidic mist take form, one that began to eat away at another helicopter's windshield and propellers. Rebecca then shot a sonic burst of air from her hands, breaking apart the windshield into the pilot's face.

"Keep running and shooting what you can!" Rebecca yelled at the others.

The other two helicopters kept following the group of "deviants" for another minute or two. Then a group of individuals in white cloaks could be seen running along the buildings. These individuals started to move with lightning speed in random gusts. With their quick movement, they caught up to the helicopters and used assault rifles to open fire.

"What the…?" Rebecca questioned at this new sight.

The group kept running down the path that they were set on, with some of them taking random glances at the people in cloaks attacking the helicopters.

"Oh god." the scarfed boy muttered in fear.

"Everyone needs to really haul ass, now!" Michael shouted.

The big boned conduit started running even faster, and grabbed a hold of Rebecca, and held her in his arms.

"While I do like the princess treatment, I didn't ask to be swept off my feet…"

"Shut it right now, Rebecca!"

The conduits kept on running, hoping that now they could evade the danger.

* * *

After some time, the crew managed to get towards Grass Lake. One of the few areas they planned out for escape routes. Being conduits, none of them seemed very exhausted from the trip, but everyone was on edge.

"That's just great. Two years of living there, and it's gone like that." Sebastian said.

"Things are crap right now, but we shouldn't let this get to us." Michael told him.

"Let it get to us? The military just came in. Not 'Dupes', military came in and nearly killed Bruce and Nicky!" Rick told Michael.

"It's far worse than just military we have to worry about now." the scarfed teen said to the group.

"What? Are you gonna pull something here?" Rick asked in an aggressive tone.

"Back off of Riley for a second Rick." Sebastian said. He then walked up to the scarfed teen and asked, "So what else we got to deal with?".

"Those people in cloaks... they are not anything like you guys have faced so far." Riley said.

"Are they like D.U.P. at all? I noticed they all have the same powers." Nicky asked.

"No, Nicky. They make the D.U.P. look like saints." Michael said.

"You know about them too? Were you part of their group before?" Riley asked Michael.

"No, but I did witness how drastically everything changed in Empire after that big blue explosion."

"You lived in Empire City during the quarantine, then?"

"Yes, that's how I know about the Reapers. I hoped that they died out when the second explosion hit the city. Obviously, someone brought them back. And if they're here…"

"Something else is probably following."

"Great. You 'East Coast' assholes are bringing your problems to the 'West Coast'." Rebecca said to put in her two cents.

Sebastian looked at Michael and Riley, and then walked towards Nicky. He told her, "Maybe you're sensing that something.".

"Huh? What are you talking about? You knew this was going to happen?"

"Of course not. No one could see this before hand. But what is she sensing?" Rick said.

Nicky moved to stand in the middle of Michael and Rebecca. She told the bunch of conduits, "I detected a conduit. It may be a strong one as well.".

"Wait. So if the Reapers are being followed by something, does that mean that there's a conduit like 'The Demon of Empire City' not too far from here?" Bruce asked the group.

"Knowing those bastards, yes. And there's no telling who it is. But I doubt that Cole would be around here. He always sends someone else to do his dirty work nowadays." Riley said.

Michael looked towards Riley with a stern expression on his face, and said, "You seem pretty confident with your knowledge of the 'real bio-terrorist'."

"Yeah, so."

"Well… time that we get a move on." Michael stated to the group.

"But we just got here." the redhead said with a worried tone. "Can't we just sit down for a while."

"Would you quiet?! I swear, you're more unstable than I am." Rebecca told her.

"Hey, back off of Emily. She was just making a suggestion." Sebastian said to Rebecca as he stood next to the redhead.

Emily looked at him, feeling a mixture of worry and appreciation. Rebecca, on the other hand, looked at Sebastian with agitation staining her face.

"Back off yourself. No one was talking to you." Rebecca told him. She then looked at Michael to say, "And you. Quit trying to control everything. Or have you forgotten why I'm in charge?".

"Well we need someone to be able to take control. Obviously you're not doing a very good job." Riley told her.

"Oh, and you would do better? Before we accepted you here, half your 'Wisp' crew was wiped out by D.U.P. soldiers. You lead people to their death."

"You bring death to everyone who doesn't follow along with you and your crazy ideas. You're even trying to make a killer out of a little girl."

After Riley said that, Rebecca got pissed, and tried to go for a swing at his face. He blocked with one arm, and attempted to use his other arm to punch the air head in her chest. Sadly, he didn't see that her other hand was open. A sonic burst of air came from Rebecca's palm, sending the scarfed boy back against a tree. The impact knocked him out.

"You bitch!" said the teen in a trench coat as she readied her powers.

Rebecca noticed, and was pumped full of adrenaline. Ready to fight. "Go 'head. Try me." Rebecca told her.

As the teen formed two spheres of red and black fire, she felt a sharp pain in her legs. The girl fell over, screaming as the flames disappeared from her hands. Following that, Rebecca also felt the same pain. Both females had their legs dislocated at the knees. Nicky then walked over with a strange, orange glow on her eyes that slowly dissipated. Most of the group backed out of her, mostly out of fear.

"Are you two ready to focus, or should I break more? Hmm? Rebecca? Raven?" Nicky asked them.

"Woah. Easy there…" Sebastian said.

"Wow. That was awesome! 'Ms. Skelekinesis' strikes again. Bu-yah!" Bruce said estatically.

"Calm down, kids. Let's not let this get out of control. But yeah, are you all ready to listen?" Michael said.

Everyone nodded, even Rick, Rebecca and Raven. As for Riley, he just regained his consciousness, and noticed his friend Raven in pain. Seeing Nicky standing up near her, he figured that the little bone girl attacked Raven. He became furious and walked up to Nicky. But before he muttered anything, he saw Rebecca in the same condition.

"Oh, I see." Riley said.

"What? Are looking for another fight?" Rick asked him.

When the rotten conduit and the scarfed boy looked at each other, Nicky transformed. She became a big skeleton, having spikes come off of her joints. This bone giant was a force to be reckoned with.

"Woah. She certainly has a bone to pick with you two." Sebastian said.

The blonde woman in the crowd of conduits then used her powers to make a punchline, rimshot drum sound. Doing so caused Bruce to start laughing.

"Come on, kid. Even by my standards, that wasn't very funny." Sebastian told Bruce.

"Would everyone shut up and listen!" Nicky told everyone, clenching boney knuckles so hard that they made popping noises.

"Easy Nicky. But everyone pay attention! This is a shitty situation. Not only did the military come and take our home, but even some of the demon boy's toy soldiers. Now is the last time for us to turn on one another! We need to push each other forward, not backward." Michael told the group.

He then nodded towards Nicky. She nodded back, and shoved the rotting conduit and scarfed teen out of her way. Then the big skeleton held out her palms, which filled with orange energy. Rebecca and Raven reached their hands out, absorbed the energy, and healed very quickly.

Michael continued on with, "We've survived this long, and none of us have seen Curdan Cay. I know we'll make it if we push forward. Is everyone on board? Or should we just kill each other and make the D.U.P's job easier?".

A mixture of responses came from everyone.

"Screw the dupes!"

"We stand united!"

"Push forward!"

"Good. We're all on the same boat." Michael said.

Nicky descended back to her human form before walking towards Michael. She nearly passed out, tripping into his arms as he crouched. He patted her on the back, and told her, " Good job, kiddo.". Then he let Nicky stand on her own before standing back up. "We leave in an hour. No exceptions."

Michael walked off to take watch by some trees, along with Rick and Riley. Rebecca became rather irritated with the situation, and stormed off to get away from everyone. The rest of the group went along their business. Either gathering supplies, or talking about the situation. Bruce, Sebastian and Felix walked over towards the little bone girl to talk with her.

Both Felix and Sebastian sat down on the ground, with Bruce going right up to Nicky to tell her, "You were amazing. Ms. Skelekinesis, the ultimate conduit.".

"Thanks, Bruce. Now could give me a couple feet of space." Nicky told him.

"Yeah. Sure. Sure." Bruce said as he backed up to sit down.

Nicky took a seat on the ground as well, sitting across from Sebastian.

"You did good, Nicky. But you do have to keep control of yourself." Sebastian said to Nicky.

"What?"

"Already sounding like a punk ass teenager. Great. Well I'm talking about how you're handling everything. Half the time, I'm wondering if I am seeing Nicky or something else when you use your powers."

"The power gets a little overwhelming, I guess."

"Yeah, we could see that when you almost passed out on Michael a second ago." Felix said. "Does any of this have to do with your dreams."

Nicky looked at Felix with a very irritated look, and told him, "Back off.".

"Dreams? I didn't realize you were having nightmares." Bruce said.

"Everyone has their shtick. I get good dreams. She gets bad dreams. Then you get wet dreams." Sebastian told the boy.

"Huh. Well I guess… Wait. Hey!"

"Well, getting back to business. Nicky, we should talk about your situation."

Nicky gave Sebastian a dirty look, before standing.

"I understand if you don't wanna talk now. It has been crappy. But understand, we're here for you." Sebastian told her before getting up and walking away.

The other boys also walked away to give Nicky some space. As he walked to check some of his supplies, Emily took a look or two at Sebastian, thinking of how he stood up for her.

"Hey. You mind helping out with this." the conduit told her as she handed her a bag.

"Huh? Oh yeah, sure." Emily responded as she grabbed the bag.

"Sheesh, emo Emily. You're not getting even more numb-skulled on me, are ya?"

"A blonde like you would know about being 'numb-skulled'. Wouldn't ya, Maria?"

"Oh, you'll pay for that one. For now, quit staring at Sebastian and help. Alright."

With that line out there, she gave Maria an irritated look before getting back to helping with the bags.

* * *

After the proposed hour, the group headed out towards the freeway. It became a foggy morning, providing sufficient cover. Michael, with Nicky piggybacking, took the lead. With the sheer size of the crew, everyone had to move fast.

As Michael hopped onto the highway, he noticed that it was rather vacant. No cars heading East or West, so it was the perfect opportunity to follow the road, and find a safe route leading North.

Michael turned towards the others who were in the trees, and said, "Hey Felix, get over…".

Before the sentence could be finished, an RV nearly ran him and Nicky over. The person driving the vehicle barely swerved around the conduits. Afterwards, the driver parked on the side of the highway. The driver came out, and walked towards the bone deviants. A man in a brown jacket above blue jeans. He had a thick, black beard as well.

"What the hell are you doing in the middle of the freeway?! I could've killed you and your daughter!" he shouted at Michael.

"Sorry, there. We'll just be on our way." Michael told him.

"Alright. I'll be on mine, too. Just be sure your way is off the road."

As the man went back to his RV, he appeared to be shoved up against his vehicle by some invisible force. As he started to squirm, the one restraining him revealed herself.

"Rebecca! What the hell are you doing?!" Michael yelled.

"I'm scoring us a ride." Rebecca said as she held the man by his neck against the RV.

The man then formed a bunch of coins on his arm, before slamming his fist into Rebecca's face. Afterwards, Riley came up to use his powers. He manipulated the gravity around the man, almost forcing him to the ground. With barely any strength in him, he shot out a single coin that fired very fast. Riley barely dodged the coin, but lost focus on his target, who launched a manhole cover sized coin. This hit Riley in the face, knocking him out, and making his scarf come off.

* * *

 **[Comic Scene]**

 _Today has probably been the worst day for our group. We've lost our home, half our supplies, and for some of us, our dignity. This man seems a bit suspicious, having powers and driving down a highway of which D.U.P. have blocked entry where he came from. I tried to sense if there was anything inside of his vehicle, and found that something living was inside. Knowing he's hiding something, I'm not sure if this man can be trusted. But is this suspicion really worth getting into something we don't know anything about._

 **[End of Comic Scene]**

* * *

 **L2 Respectful Courtesy:**

Try to calm the situation.

 **R2 Forceful Entry:**

Escalate the inevitable.

* * *

 **Author's Note**

 **Hey everybody, CJ here with another long awaited chapter for the story of the little kid, Nicky. For those who are curious, I will be accepting OC's for a while still, but I am not taking any more gang leaders. Lone wolf or gang member is the only way to go. Another thing too, I could use some more Reaper gang members. I barely have one sent in. Thank you all for your patience, and I'm glad you like this story of mine. Remember to give some feedback, (and tell me how much of a piece of crap this chapter is). Along with that, tell me what Nicky should do next. So far, she's more positive with a bit of attitude. Still room for me to make her an awesome vigilante, a horrible monster, or some strange combo. Peace, er'body!**


	14. Chapter 14

**L2 Respectful Courtesy** Selected

* * *

Seeing the man stand his ground against both Rebecca and Riley was both impressive and intimidating in Nicole's eyes. When she got out of her thoughts, the young bone girl got off of Michael's back, then ran in the middle of the bearded man and the two aggressive conduits. Both the "airhead" and "graviton" got back up, ready to go for another round. With his scarf off, one could see a handprint mark covering the left side of Riley's jaw.

"Enough! Stop this!" Nicky told them.

"What are you doing?! We need this ride!" Rebecca told Nicky.

"We shouldn't be making more enemies when the entire government wants us imprisoned or dead." Nicky said to Rebecca in a very irritated tone.

"You think that we can let this opportunity pass us by? We are desperate as hell!"

"We have to do what we gotta do. It doesn't matter who's in the way." Riley said to put in his two cents.

Both Rebecca and Riley readied their powers, expecting to get back into fighting. Then Michael threw a beer bottle that shattered in front of them before running to Nicole's side.

"Rebecca. This bullshit stops now." Michael said in an angered voice.

"What the…?" the bearded man said not being able to understand the situation.

"Daddy?" a little girl questioned from the driver's side window of the RV.

Everyone turned their heads to see the kid. The bearded man peered with a look of surprise, then told her, "Get back to your bed, sweetie.".

The little girl listened to the man, and went towards the back of the RV. Seeing her, Riley calmed himself, putting his hands to his sides. Sebastian, Maria and Emily all jumped from the trees before climbing onto the RV. Following them, Felix and Rick went around the back, with Riley's 'Wisp' crew going around the front. They all saw Rebecca as the only one being aggressive in the situation.

"What's up your ass, Rebecca?" Sebastian asked.

"I'm trying to get us a ride out of here. And these two are getting in the way!" Rebecca shouted.

"The kid is right. We need to stop this." Riley told Rebecca.

Rebecca turned towards Riley, and said, "This coming from 'Mr. Screw the police'. 'Mr. Kill the dupes'. You're going to tell me all this!".

Everyone got nervous seeing Rebecca in this state, so the bearded man started to go to his RV. Noticing this, Rebecca turned so that she could aim one hand at Riley and the Wisps. Then the other at Mike and Nicky. Immediately after aiming, she fired strong bursts of air in both directions. The impact knocked all of them back and out of her way.

"Get over here, you hairy prick!" Rebecca yelled at the man before charging towards him.

As she ran towards the bearded man, Maria shot a colorful projectile in the shape of a record disc. Rebecca barely dodged it, but her momentum was thrown off, allowing for Sebastian to jump down and throw rope towards her. The rope wrapped around her left shoulder and right armpit. With his grip on her, Sebastian pulled Rebecca against the ground.

"Hey, Emily. Jump down and nail her." Sebastian said.

Emily nodded, and hopped down from the RV. Rebecca tried to shoot another burst of air at Sebastian, but missed when Maria shot a small projectile at her gut. With her groaning in pain, it made it much easier for Emily to shoot nails into the sides of Rebecca's clothes and in the parts of rope Sebastian pointed out. As they got to work on restraining the limbs, everyone who was knocked down by the "airhead" got up. Riley and crew went over to look at Rebecca and talk with the others. Mike and Nicky, on the other hand, stayed by the man to talk with him.

"Sorry about this whole situation. We did not mean to put you and your daughter in danger." Michael told him.

"What the hell are you people doing here?!" the man asked in an irritated tone.

"We were trying to find a route up North. Seeing how things are going, might have to head to the border."

"Trying to run from the D.U.P. then?"

"Mainly trying get this one to safety." Michael said as he patted Nicole on her back.

"What? You're taking us into Canada?" Nicky asked Michael.

"Who said 'us'?" Michael told her.

"You're joking,... right?" Nicky said with some concern in her voice.

"Nicky. I'm afraid I can't allow you to hang around anymore."

"Huh?"

"Seeing how everything is going, I have to take you somewhere else."

"You're leaving me behind?" Nicky asked in a sad tone.

"What? No, Nic…"

"Why are you trying to get rid of me?! Do hate me for the things I did?!" Nicole yelled at Michael.

"Calm down, Nicole. I don't hate you." Michael said as he kneeled down and put his hands on her shoulders to look her in the eyes. "While you made a bad decision, that does not make me hate you. I want to bring you up to Canada because it could mean safety for you. Training with you over the years, I see that there is some good in you. You're willing to help others."

"But why would you get rid of me? If you care so much?" Nicole asked with tears starting to flow down a slightly angry face.

"Nicky... I am a man who grew up with nothing. My mother died before I could really know her, and my father beat me constantly. I ran from home like you did, but I did before I got powers. I wanted to make a difference in this world when I did. It felt like God had blessed me with the tools I needed to keep others from being like me as a child."

Nicky started crying a little. Michael then wrapped his arms around her, and pressed her head against his left shoulder. He continued on with, "When you came into my life, I didn't know what to expect. Seeing everything now, I wish some things could have been different. I realize that you're only thing left I have to lose. The one thing I can't afford to lose.".

The bearded man looked at the two with a slight bit of concern in his eyes. He told Michael, "You are quite a caring father.".

Michael looked at the man and replied, "I'm not her real dad, but I want to do the best I can to keep her safe now.".

Looking back at his RV, and then at Michael again, he decided to say, "I could let you and her ride with me to the border. I do have a daughter of my own, so I understand your concern for her safety.".

Michael then said, "Thank you for your offer, but I don't want to impose any more than…"

"I insist. It is what you want for her after all, right? To be safe? I don't take that lightly with my kin, I doubt you would either." the man said before Michael could finish.

Nicky, feeling a mixture of comfort from Michael's hug and depression from the situation, had random thoughts flow through her head. Even with what Michael said, there were a number of scenarios that could come into play.

* * *

 **Triangle: Road Trip**

Convince the man to allow you, Mike, Felix and Sebas to come on board.

 **Square: Wisped Away**

Join up with Riley's Crew.

 **Circle: Take Control**

Show your dominance.

 **X: Cannot Stand Divided**

Keep everyone together.

* * *

 **Author's Notes**

 **Hey again, everybody. I am aware that it's a short chapter, and I put choices in not long after others. I honestly want to figure out a different way to write this story from what I originally had planned months ago. Either way, everyone make a choice, because choices really do matter for this kid. Also, I may have set it in the character description list, but anyone can send me in a request for… how do they call… "shipments" between characters. (I can add love lives for any pair of characters as long as it doesn't include any little kid characters. Only those 14 years and up.) Know that just like with characters, I will be picky about any pairings. Either way, can't wait to have more fun writing this story. PEACE!**


	15. Chapter 15

**X: Cannot Stand Divided** Selected

 **Karma Rank Changed to:** Little Angel

 **Achievement:** "A house divided cannot stand."

* * *

Even with the warm comfort he was giving Nicole, Michael's words made her feel a sense of abandonment. Seeing as she already witnessed three deaths, and lost any connections to her family, everything seemed to be falling apart. Nicole was tired of it, and couldn't take it anymore.

She pushed herself out of Michael's arms and told him, "No. I can't go along with it.".

Michael then said, "Nicole. I want to protect you. Being around me…".

"I'm not going. Just because things are hard, we have to split? The world is falling apart, so we should do the same?!"

"That's not what I'm trying to do."

"But it is what you are doing."

"Nicole, please. You have to understand that I can't protect you from everything."

"No! You have to understand I'm tired of this feeling of abandonment!" Nicky shouted at Michael.

Everyone then looked towards the bone conduits. All except for Rebecca turned to see what the young girl was furious about.

"You think I can't see how things are going. I realize things are falling apart. But that was because we had an idiot run everything."

"As a group, we are very vulnerable to attack, Nicky." Michael told her.

"And split apart, they can take us out one by one. Only together can we protect one another. It's the only way any of us can be safe."

"Up in Canada, they have programs for people like us. You'll be safe and sound in no time."

"Pffft. Screw Canadia, eh? We need to actually fix things in our own home." Sebastian said abruptly as he finished up with Rebecca. "We should focus on what we've got here."

"Have you got a problem with Canada or something?" the musical conduit asked him.

"No. Just pointing out that we shouldn't just abandon everything. Plus if we go, how long would it be before the D.U.P. end up finding a way to purge into Canada? Saying something like 'They smuggling terrorists!' What about that?".

"Are you nuts, kid?" Rick asked Sebastian.

"No, he's got a point. It would a matter of time before our government would either convince, or force cooperation to get rid of the 'bio-terrorists' as they call us. And it wouldn't take long with force, considering they don't have forced conduit programs there." Riley told the group.

"But what about the UN? Wouldn't they stop it?" Felix asked.

"They didn't help when people was killing each other overseas." Sebastian told Felix.

"Are you talking about Syria?" Emily asked.

"I don't know much about current politics, I was talking about Rwanda." Sebastian said.

"What do you know about Rwanda?" Maria asked Sebastian.

"I know that when black people were killing each other there, the UN just took everyone else out until the differences were settled." Sebastian said to her.

"That's not really what happened, but you do bring up a point." Nicole said.

"Enough politics!" Michael shouted out. "Nicole. Are you sure you don't want to just go to safety in Canada? Maybe start a brand new life free from…"

"Yes, I'm sure." Nicole interrupted.

"Well, alright then. If the Misses doesn't want to go, fine. I hope the best for you and your group." The bearded man said as he went back into his RV. "I really do."

The man then closed the driver's door, and started up the engine. He then drove down the empty highway, disappearing into the fog. With him out of the picture, the group of conduits (and a few humans) looked at one another with questionable looks. No one really knew what their next move should be.

Michael then stood up to say to everyone, "Welp, it looks like we're all stuck together. But that doesn't mean we're out of solutions to survive.".

"Maybe we should find out about that conduit she was detecting." Sebastian said.

"You think a wild goose chase is the best thing to do?" Rick asked Sebastian.

"Well what have we got to lose? We might as well find out what's going on if we intend to stick together." Riley told Rick.

"She intends to stick together. I intend to protect my brother. As for you, you just don't give a damn apparently." Rick said.

"Don't give a damn?" Riley asked.

"Yeah. Rebecca has a point when it comes to you and your 'bringing death to everyone' bullshit!" Rick answered.

As the two continued to argue, Bruce came out of the bushes off the freeway. He felt very exhausted, as he started limping across the road. Rick turned around and saw his brother trying to join everyone. Nicky looked at Bruce using her "bone vision" seeing if anything was wrong with his skeleton. She didn't see anything abnormal, but Nicky did get her powers ready when Bruce started stumbling. The rest of the group watched as Rick ran over to grab Bruce as he tripped on his foot.

Before he could fall face first into pavement, Bruce appeared to be held back by something. With this, Rick was able to get his brother.

As he held Bruce, Rick told him, "I told you to stay back. You're still tired as hell from all that damn TV watching last night.".

"But I wanted…" Bruce said before coughing.

"God damn it! Now you're sick." Rick said with frustration.

"We should have some cold medicine leftover still." Michael told the decay conduit. "Felix, it should be in the bag you have."

"Oh, ok. I'll check." Felix said.

Felix took his backpack off and looked through it. After digging through cloths and a first aid kit, he found a small medicine vial called "ER-Gent Cold and Cough". As Felix grabbed out the cold medicine, Sebastian grabbed it out of his hand, and tossed it towards Michael. Mike raised his hand as if being tossed a beer can. Michael caught it, and handed it to Rick.

"Here, buddy. Take some of this medicine.". Rick said.

The toxic conduit then took off the cap for the vial and poured some of the medicine into it. He gave it to bruce, who then drank the contents of the cap.

"We need to get you someplace safe, buddy." the toxic conduit told Bruce.

"Maybe we can find something in Seattle." Felix suggested.

"You sure there's not a bunch of "rock heads" over there too? My brother's life is on the line." Rick said.

"Funny you talking about another's life." Nicky made a snide remark.

The toxic conduit looked at her before saying, "I care for my family, kid. I am trying to turn a new leaf.".

"As long as you don't do the same terrible things you did when I first met you." Nicky said.

"It's been two years, would you drop it. It's not like I'm breaking rules, 'momma'." Rick said.

"I miss mom." Bruce said before he started coughing again.

"I miss her too buddy." Rick told his brother.

"Let's get a move on. The longer we stay here, the more likely we are to be screwed." Sebastian said.

"Sebastian's right everyone. We need to get moving and now." Michael said to everyone.

"We could have been moving with that RV you all let get away. What the hell were you thinking letting him leave?" Rebecca said.

"We're not looking to make others suffer like you want to do." the bone girl said.

"We're all suffering." Rebecca told Nicky.

"Enough, Rebecca. We're going now." Michael said.

Most of the group just nodded their heads in agreement, then grabbed everything that was left off the side of the highway. Nicky went ahead and climbed back onto Michael for the trip. Rick held Bruce in his arms, and Sebastian threw Rebecca onto his shoulder.

"Hey, let me out of this." Rebecca told Sebastian.

Sebastian simply ignored her, and followed close behind Michael. Everyone else went through the fog with them, hoping that what came next would be at least a glimmer of hope.

* * *

As everyone traveled, some of the group talked amongst each other. Riley spoke with the tallest member of his crew, trying to keep it as silent as possible from the others.

"How do you think things will turn out from hanging around these people?" the tall teen asked Riley.

"Not sure, but we'll see how everything turns out. I'm starting to think that those bone heads might be the only hope for this group." Riley responded.

"Yeah. Plus without Sebastian, I don't think anyone else would be kept in line." the tall teen responded.

"Yep."

"Do you regret following Rebecca, boss?"

"What's done is done. I simply did what I thought would help us survive."

"But you stopped when you saw the little girl in the RV. Why?"

"We're survivors, not baby killers, Logan. I'm not going through the same shit like I did before I found you guys."

The two teenagers continued their conversation about the past, while others spoke of more miscellaneous matters.

"He just seems like a nice guy, Maria." Emily said to the musical conduit.

"Yeah, whatever. But whatever you do, don't go and play with his heart." the musical conduit responded.

"Why would you think that of me?" Emily asked.

"Because when I was a reporter, I covered cases with emotional girls like yourself. So I know a manipulator when I see one." Maria told her.

"You're comparing me to…" Emily said before being stopped.

"Everyone stop." Michael told the group.

Michael took a sniff of the air around them, sensing a strange aroma.

Sebastian took in a whiff of the air as well before saying, "I smell it too. It's like burning rubber.".

"Everyone be on your guard. Get ready for a fight." Michael said to everyone.

Nicky jumped off of Michael's back to get herself ready. Sebastian made sure that Rebecca was secure on his left shoulder to get his other arm prepared. The rest of the group (who wasn't tied up) followed suit, getting anxious for another attack to happen.

As they walked through the fog, the scent of burning rubber became much more potent. Michael noticed pieces of metal all over the ground in many different shapes and sizes. Some looked like parts of an axle and engine. Others appeared to be bullets and casings. It became more apparent that this was the scene of a battle. Felix took a look around the area, and stretched his arms out.

"Hey. What are you doing?" Sebastian said as he took notice of the "Steamer" conduit.

Felix began to absorb some of the fog ahead of the group, revealing a trashed up recreational vehicle. The front of the RV appeared to have been crushed downward, causing the engine to be thrown underneath the frame. It didn't take long for Michael to figure out where the RV came from.

"Oh god." Michael said to himself.

Sebastian had a look of worry on his face before saying, "Wait. Was that…?".

"The man's RV." Nicky continued for Sebastian.

"I'm going to go check out the wreckage. You all stay here for a second. Alright?" Michael told the group.

Everyone (who could) gave a gesture of acceptance, except for Nicky. Michael looked at the young girl, confused by Nicky having her hand on the side of her head, appearing to be straining.

"What's the matter, Nicky?" Michael asked her.

"There's… there's three." she answered.

"Three what?" Michael questioned as he formed spiky bone armor over his arms and fists.

"Three mean ones. They're coming fast." the little bone girl said.

Hearing what she said, Rick set down his brother to lay against a backpack. Sebastian went ahead and set Rebecca down to free his arms.

"We have to get ready…" Nicky said as she changed her form.

Her clothes and flesh quickly turned into an orange energy around her bones as they grew. Her skeletal structure became three times as thick, and stood seven feet off the ground. Small spikes formed along the spine and limbs as well.

As she finished her transformation, she continued saying, "... to fight these bastards!", with a strange, deep voice.

"Have to try and be intimidating. Huh kid?" Riley asked sarcastically.

"You've already been knocked out twice. Strike number three is coming up if you don't shut up." the skeleton told him.

"Oh snap. Give me some." Sebastian said as he held his hand out for a high five.

From behind the ruined RV, a figure in a white coat moved in random flashes towards the group. Before anyone could engage this individual, they slammed their hand into the ground. In doing so, the hostile individual threw a large shockwave at the group of conduits. It knocked over Nicole, Sebastian, Felix and Emily.

Michael and Rick ran towards the perpetrator when another quick moving person came in. They flashed quickly towards Michael, swinging their arm at such a fast speed that the impact swung the bone conduit's legs into the air. In turn, he had flipped over, and landed on his face. The same individual flashed in Rick's direction. This time, they jumped, flipped and spun in the air, and wrapped their arm around the back of the toxic conduit's neck. With that grip, the quick moving individual used the force on their body to bring Rick's head to the ground. All three of the large conduits were knocked down.

The rest of the group got their powers and weapons ready to strike the two, but we're stopped when a voice from behind said, "Hold it!".

Maria, Riley and his crew turned around to see a man in a fur lined jacket holding Bruce with a knife at his throat.

"Drop your hands to the ground before he guts the boy." the quick moving person said as they walked away from Rick.

The other quick moving individual walked up to get behind. Being able to actually see their shapes now, it was obvious that the more brutal of the two was a woman, and a rather tall one at that. She grabbed out an AK from her back and pointed at the rest of the group.

"Well…?" she said to them.

The group complied with her request, and put their hands on the ground. Nicky slowly changed back into her human form to retain her consciousness. She turned her head to see what was happening, and was very frightened by the sight of the man holding Bruce.

* * *

 _ **[Comic Scene]**_

 _Seeing Bruce in this state sent a sick feeling through my body. That man with combed back hair holding Bruce with a knife, and smiling as he did so. I thought of how we helped free him from the D.U.P. around two years ago._

 _His brother Rick said he witnessed them kill his girlfriend as they took his brother away. I helped crack some skulls, both literally and metaphorically, to get to Bruce. The D.U.P. even attempted to kill Bruce before we could grab him, but I quickly got him out of line of fire. Probably the only reason Rick doesn't hate me._

 _I knew the man was going kill him if given the chance, so I wasn't going to let him have it. Stretching my arms out, I passed some of my energy into Michael and Sebastian. Then I took a look at the animal holding Bruce, pulled his finger… and the rest of his arm to the side. It sounded like multiple bones popped out of place as he screamed and let go of Bruce. Sebastian and Michael subdued the tall woman, Rick grabbed a hold of the other quick running conduit, and I was face to face with one of Death's favorites._

* * *

 **Hey everybody, sorry for another long ass wait. Glad to finally put this chapter up. It took too much time, but now our favorite transforming, super powered (puff:)) girl is back. Gotta like kids with powers. If it weren't for the fetishes, then I'd really like some of those Japanese cartoons/anime. Frack, I hope they don't make one of this material! Naw, but for real, I'm still accepting characters and "shipments". Also, let me know what you think of the story so far in your review. Maybe tell me if things are getting too violent or too creepy. (Definitely don't want creepy with a twelve year old main character. Dear god, did make an anime concept?!) On one final note, I will answer questions publicly every week or so in the bottom of my profile page. That way, I can answer questions from even anonymous people on this site. Anyway, PEACE!**


	16. Chapter 16

_The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection._

-Thomas Paine

* * *

Conflict seems to only increase over the years. With old problems being solved, new ones occur more rapidly. Within the city of Seattle, more conflicts rise up. Some being life threatening, while others… more or a simple nuisance.

"Stop the spread of drugs! Stop the spread of bio-terrorists!" a woman shouted as she waved a sign.

This woman acts as part of a group of people who've sought out ways to combat the rise in conduit activities through protest. Be it peaceful or violent. Though portrayed by media as a help to communities, there are some who see them as "human purists". With their views on conduits, there are often counter protests that occur as well.

As the woman and her group continued shouting and waving signs, a young man ran to stand in front of them. He held up a sign that said, "FETCH DID NOTHING WRONG!".

"Hey! Bio-terrorists are awesome. I say let 'em spread!" the young man said.

A man from the group of protesters walked up to him and said, "Quit spewing bull over here! We're trying to get people to take things seriously!".

"Yeah, I can tell. You have signs, petition sheets, and a bunch of morons to follow you." the young man replied.

"Oh yeah. And you think you could do it better?" the male protester said.

"Tell me. Do you have allergies?" the man asked.

The slightly older man squinted behind his glasses as he muttered, "Huh?".

"Cause I think mine are acting up." the man said.

He started sniffling, and made a loud *a-choo* sound as he stuffed his mouth into his hand. Following that, what looked like bits of yellow dust came from the hand he sneezed in, and into the male protester's face. This caused an allergic reaction in the man, making him sneeze uncontrollably.

"Jesus! Are you alright, Cameron?" a female protester asked.

"Ah, crap. Why'd you do that man?" a slightly taller young man asked.

"Whoops. Had a bunch of pollen in hand from the flower shop." the other young man said.

The two young men started laughing at the sneezing man as he started tearing up. A young woman came up from behind the pair of immature individuals, who then proceeded to grab them both by the hair to knock their heads together. The two young men turned around after rubbing their heads in pain to see a woman near her twenties in a white sundress. Peering at her face from below her straw sun hat, they could tell she was irritated.

The young woman told them, "Let's get this encounter dealt with already, before…".

As she tried to finish her sentence, the slightly taller young man grabbed both her and the other young man before forcing them on to him. He then dropped himself backwards on to the pavement, narrowly avoiding a cluster of glass shards that flew over them. After that sight, they witnessed a tall, blonde teenager hop over them. As he passed the trio of trouble makers, they also noticed that a woman of about five and a half was chasing after him.

"Get your ass back here!" the woman yelled at him.

The blonde teen ran down the sidewalk, dodging random shards of glass being shot at him. People were running all over the place, trying not to be part of the mess that the two were making.

"Caramel macchiato." A woman wearing shades announced inside a coffee shop.

"Ah, thanks." A young man said as he grabbed the coffee. "Man I love 'Cafe con'..."

"Duck!" the woman said.

"What?" the young man asked.

"DUCK!" the woman yelled as she forced him to the ground.

Right after what almost looked like assault, these two heard glass shards go through the windows. As that happened, a bunch of shards were pulled from the windows, and into the arms of the woman chasing a teenager.

"Look. Can't we just talk?" the teen asked as glass shards got closer and closer to tearing up his gray shirt and black vest.

"Once I shove a shard up your ass!" the woman said.

After a brief moment of fear, the teen appeared to have turned invisible. The woman lost track of him for a moment or two before hearing the sounds of someone running up a fire escape. She followed after the noise, and fired a burst of glass from her hands that launched her on to the roof of a building nearby the fire escape. The teenager had become visible again as the woman chased after.

"Aw. Nice. That's definitely one for the album." a young woman watching said after taking a picture of the chase with her camera.

After a bit of building hopping and climbing, the teen then ended up cornered on the roof of a rather tall structure.

As the woman approached him, the two of them heard a strange buzzing noise. They looked over at a corner of the building, and saw a figure jump onto the roof, radiating with a purple and blue glow. After a second or two, the light from the figure faded away, revealing it to be a young man with an overall hipster delinquent look. He had a smile on his face like he was about to make more friends, and started to approach the other conduits.

"Wow. Awesome. I get to meet with two conduits today. So anyway, I just wanna talk to you guys, and maybe come up with a way to take out the D.U.P. or something. But first, I kinda need to shake your hands." he told them.

In response, both the teenager and the woman shot a blast of energy with shards of either glass or a mix of material from mirrors. The young man dodged the two blasts, and fired a shot of glowing energy at the teenager. As the shot was about to make contact with him, he put his hands together to form a reflective surface. This made the energy bounce back at the attacker, and threw him over the edge of the building. Succeeding in getting the delinquent out of the way, the teen turned to the young woman who was chasing after him with an irritated look.

"Can we ta…?" he said as something wrapped around him.

Someone then pushed him over onto his belly. As looked down on himself, the teen realized that he was tied up by what looked like barb wire. The woman then walked up to him with a smile on her face, and set her hand on his head.

She told him, "Now… we can talk.".

* * *

While it was growing elsewhere, Nicky had quite a bit of chaos to deal with right in front of her.

"You really have a death wish. Huh, kid?" the man in the fur lined coat said as he forced bones in his arm back into place.

"Maybe I do." the young bone girl told him.

The man put a smile back on his face as he pulled out another. With now two knives in hand, he got ready to strike at Nicky.

"Guess I'll make it come true, little girl." he said before running towards her.

"Logan!" Riley shouted at the tall teen near him.

"Huh?" the man muttered as he heard Riley.

The tall teen Riley shouted at then used his powers to create a dark hole near one of the other "Wisps". That member then quickly got out her gun, and opened fire through the hole. The man in the fur lined coat then felt five blistering stings in his back. He did not need to look back to realize that the teenager opened a portal of some sort behind. To get back at her, the man threw a knife at the gun blazing female. As it came close to hitting her, Riley took the knife in the shoulder.

"Stupid boy." the man muttered.

"Stupid man!" Nicky shouted at him.

Right after the little girl said that, both of his feet were swept from underneath by a force invisible to him. The force sent his feet upward, flipping him backwards in the air. Riley ran towards the man as he gathered energy in both of his hands. With his powers, he sent a shockwave at the man. While airborne, the man threw a knife, then was carried away by the shockwave. The power from Riley threw him about twenty-five feet away.

"God damn." Riley said as he took the knife out of his shoulder.

"NO! Nicky!" Michael shouted as he ran to the little girl.

Riley turned to the child to see her on the ground in pain. The knife that was thrown was thrown into her stomach area. Even with ruff training from Rebecca, this was too much for young Nicole.

"Nicky, let me help you out." Michael said as he grabbed her shoulder and the handle of knife. "Ready?"

"Yes." Nicky said in a pained voice.

"Okay. One. Two. Three." Michael said to her as he quickly pulled out the knife from the child's belly.

The child healed quickly, but still felt the pain. Sebastian saw the situation, and left the tall woman unattended after tying a tight rope around her. He ran to see how the girl was doing, feeling a lot of worry for her. Rick started getting furious after seeing what both of the children just dealt with, and decided while no one was looking, to choke the individual he apprehended. He filled their lungs with some smelly gases, which caused the quick individual to pass out. With that person out of the way, Rick ran over to grab his brother, and get close to the others.

"Come on Wisps, let's deal with this guy!" Riley called out to his crew.

He, Logan, Raven, and the rest of his crew ran over to attack the man who attacked the children. Meanwhile, the rest of the group of conduits gathered together, with Rebecca still tied up. Nicole was barely able to get up, still feeling weak from the stabbing. Bruce was being held in Rick's arms, about ready to pass out from shock of the moment. Marie walked up to Rick to feel Bruce's forehead.

"He's burning up a bit. Let me get together a cold cloth for his forehead." she told him.

"Thanks." Rick said with a nod.

"We have to make sure to end this." Michael said as she got up from Nicole's side.

"What?" Sebastian asked.

"I doubt these little 'Wisps' can take him on. He doesn't have powers, but something about him reminds of that 'Jack the Ripper' story. We all have to stop him." Michael told the group.

"Damn right. That son of a bitch tried to kill kids. This bastard should die!" Rick said as he set down his brother.

Marie attended to Bruce's aid as she said to Rick, "Don't kill him just like that.".

"She's right. We'll interrogate first. Find out where he's from." Michael told Rick.

"And after that?" Rick asked.

"Let's deal with him first." Michael said as he popped his bone armored knuckles.

The 'Bone Man' ran towards the psycho, being followed by Rick. With the two largest members running off, it was just Bruce and Nicky being tended to by Emily, Marie, Felix and Sebastian.

"Well, hopefully they can put an end to it." Felix told them.

"Yeah. Hopefully." Sebastian said. "Hey, Nicky. You feelin' okay? You lookin' a little bit brain dead."

Nicky seemed to be stuck in a state of unconsciousness. She was standing up straight, but had her eyes closed.

Inside her head, images were flying through of many different people. Some that the child recognized, and some that seemed hardly familiar. Then, she appeared to be in a dark room. seeing only a chair underneath some light. All around the room, a strange tar-like substance flowed over to the chair. The material started combining together, and began materializing into a person.

"Not you again." Nicky said.

The substance formed in a woman, wearing a red hoodie covered in skulls, and black pants that looked like part of her skin. Nicky felt chills go up and down her spine at the sight of this woman.

"Yes. It's me again. And I told you child, I'm the only real friend you have in this. I could even be like a mother to you." the woman told her in a strange, echoing voice.

"Stop it." Nicky told her.

"Either way, you should know that that man who is fighting you was employed by one of my people." the woman said.

"Big surprise. You sent him to kill us." Nicky said.

"No. He's not my ideal individual for a task even as basic as dealing with lowlife prime conduits. Unlike most of those who work for me directly, he actually has attachments outside of work." the woman said.

"You're saying that monster actually has loved ones waiting for him?" the child asked while hesitant of the woman's statement.

"Yes. Even better is that the loved 'one' of his happens to be completely unaware of his activities. A man who lives a double life is not worth my time. If anything, that makes him a liability in my book. At the same time though, it can be used to one's advantage." the tar person said as she curled her right index finger, and put it up by her sadistic smile.

"What are you getting at? You crazy hallucination of mine." Nicky said.

"If we can move past the sarcasm my little pre-teen powerhouse, then I'll have this for you. To get him to stop, tell him this."

The woman went on telling her a few lines she would need to say in order to stop the attack, or at least put the individuals involved off balance. After telling her that, the psychotic female let the child regain control of her body. Now, the child felt stronger than just a moment ago. She saw in the distance a fight breaking out. Michael, Rick and the 'Wisps' were all trying to fight the murderous man.

Logan tried to use his "black holes" to allow his human allies to fire at the man, but the each attempt proved worthless. Even as the man was dodging attacks from the large conduits.

"Stay still, you sick bastard. So I can rip you a new asshole." Rick yelled at the man.

"Vulgar words coming from a man who smells as vulgar. I bet that stench killed your last girlfriend." the man said.

Those last words brought back some painful memories for Rick, sending him into a raging fit. He quickly gathered his energy, and threw out a large breeze of acidic gases. The man easily dodged it, and ran up to Rick to give him a few slices with his knife. The man quickly backed away to make a focus on the "Gas Giant".

"You think a few itchy scratches are gonna… ARGH!" Rick said as he felt sharp pains on his torso.

It appeared that all the minor cuts on Rick had increased five times in size and length. The pain forced Rick to the ground, rendering him unable to fight for the moment. As the man with knives focused on Rick, Michael grabbed a hold of him from behind. The man tried to cut him, but then saw that his attempts were futile as the one who held him up had covered himself in spiky bone armor.

"Riley! Send as much force on him as you can! And don't worry about me!" Michael told the scarf wearing teen.

"Ya got it, boss." Riley responded.

As the near adult gathered energy in his hand, he heard strange sounds like liquid splashing around. To his surprise, yet another conduit came into the battle. He saw a teenager jump high into the air, and fire a sphere of red fluid at him. The scarfed teen barely dodged the attack, but Michael received two long blades into his back. He groaned in pain as he fell to the ground. The blades that penetrates his armor were attached to the new teen's wrists. As she pulled out her scythe like wrist knives, Riley looked at her and noticed she had pure white hair that was about chin length. Along with that, she wore red-tinted black pants and a jacket.

"NOOOOO!" Nicky screamed at her.

The human members of Riley's crew started opening fire alongside Raven, who threw napalm like blasts. Their target however, turned into a puddle of red fluid, and slid along the ground. Riley was a bit curious as to what that liquid was, rubbing a little bit of it from the pavement between his fingers.

"Oh god. START RUNNING, GUYS!" the scarfed teen yelled at his crew.

Before they could react, the teen in red and black grabbed a hold of Logan. She swung him around and tossed him into Raven. Riley ran over to stop her from attacking the rest of his crew, but was stabbed in the gut by the psychotic man.

"How about you sit and watch the show." the man told him as he grabbed Riley by the hair and forced him down. "And why don't you take this off. I want to see your whole face when your friends die."

With the knife in his gut, and the cut seeming to grow bigger and bigger, the teenager was helpless as the man took off his scarf, and the girl attacked his human allies. Nicky couldn't stand by any more. With so much rage bottled up inside, she charged right into the conflict.

"Nicky! Wait! Damn it!" Sebastian said before turning to Emily and Marie. "You two watch Bruce. I gotta deal with this shit."

The two young women gave him a nod, and he ran off after the bone child. They were too far away to stop the liquid conduit from attacking the three remaining human members of Riley's "Wisps" crew. She changed the sharp shapes on his wrists to look like the blades of dacian scythes. The red bladed girl then proceeded to slice through the human individuals, leaving them dead and bleeding on the ground. Riley couldn't help but weep at the sight of his fallen comrades.

"Don't worry. You'll get to join them soon enough. It must suck having a face like yours as well. Having a face like that, and being a conduit, it's no wonder your group is quickly dying one by one." the man continued to tell Riley.

As the man's words started to really mess with his thoughts, Riley noticed Nicky charging at the bladed girl. The teen in red and black saw her, and quickly put her hand on the ground, and absorbed the blood coming from the bodies of the human "Wisps" members. After finishing, she ran towards Nicky, getting ready to stab her.

"You asked for this, kid." she told Nicole.

As she got close to the child, the little bone girl took on her giant skeleton form. Catching her off guard, she grabbed the bladed girl by her head and slammed it on the ground before grabbing her right arm.

"No! You asked for this! Bitch!" the boney child told her.

"Nicky?" Sebastian said as he looked at what she did.

He then looked at the man holding Riley, who looked right backed into Sebastian's eyes. The man threw Riley off to the side, and got ready to attack the rope conduit. With their fight about to begin, Nicky began to somehow drain energy out of the blood conduit.

"What are you doing to me?!" the girl tried to say as the giant bone hand on her face muffled her voice.

Nicole looked at her face, noticing quite a strange detail on her. The right eye was purple, with the left being crimson red. Even stranger the eyes both had slit pupils.

"Well I'm taking some of your power away." the giant skeleton said. "It'll make it easier for me to do this!"

The bone girl then twisted the blood girl's arm, making her scream in pain. Following that, she made all the bones in her arm twist and break into pieces. Not far from Nicky's torture, Sebastian was struggling to fight back against the cut-throat conduit in front of him.

"Why do you persist on fighting? Wouldn't just running away be easier for someone in your shoes?" the man asked as he attempted to cut Sebastian's arm.

"Not if people like you are free to bring harm to others! What kind of man throws a knife at a child?!" Sebastian yelled at him as he wrapped his arms in rope.

"Kids, women, children. Doesn't matter to me as long as I get paid." the man responded.

"Another bullshit hit man!" Sebastian said as he swung for the chest and stomach.

"Well, unlike you little assholes, I have a name for myself." the man told him as he tripped the rope conduit to the ground. He then put a knife up to his neck before continuing with, "You're not the first bunch I've dealt with, and definitely won't be the last.".

As he kept his focus on Sebastian, the man heard a small explosion go off where Nicole and the blood conduit were. Nicky was forced away by some even stranger power from her opponent, sending her nearby Felix. The little girl had changed back into her human form, and the one she was fighting got up. The blood conduit's left eye was glowing red as she walked towards the child. As she popped the bones in her arm back to their correct positions, the teen in red and black looked down to see a backpack with purple light radiating from inside it.

"Ooh. You actually found one of these little rocks." the bloody girl said while reaching inside the bag.

She grabbed the contents of the backpack, and took it out. The teen revealed a blast core, and held it up to see it's glow in the light fog around them. As she admired her find, Emily shot a bunch of rather long nails in her direction. The girl simply moved to the side, and gave the nail shooting female a disapproving look.

"Good job distracting her, 'Nail-Gun'." Bruce said in a sickly voice.

"What?" the blood said to herself.

The blood conduit looked to where Nicky was, and found that she was right there. It took only seconds for the little bone girl to have a hold on the blast core, and send a current of energy through it. Nicky desperately tried to hang onto it and absorb the energy, but the blood conduit had the same idea. The energy traveled between the two individuals as they both hung on the purple rock.

In the distance, Michael slowly got back up to his feet. He looked at the aftermath of what the blood conduit's slaughter, and began to have a slight flashback of when he was younger. Remembering the bodies of innocent people, and lunatics rampaging the streets. The bone man then looked at the scene between the teen and Nicky, feeling anger flow quickly through him. He charged straight towards the scene, attracting the attention of the psycho who was now choking sebastian with his own rope.

"Oh, I don't think so." the man said as he tossed the rope conduit to the side.

He tried to chase after the big bone conduit, but lost his footing and tripped. As he looked at his legs, he found that a rope was tied to his leg, leading to the guard rail on the side of the road. It didn't take long for him to realize that even the young conduit he was choking had a trump card. The crazy man got out another one of his knives to cut the rope, and then felt a force throw him back where he was running from. After flying through the air for a few seconds, he was hit against something large, fleshy, and smelly.

"Time for you to eat shit, cut throat." the large, smelly thing said as it grabbed the man by the neck.

As the psycho was being dealt with, Michael ran over to the blood conduit. He reached his arms over her shoulders, grabbing a hold on her forearms. Right after, Maria did the same to Nicky. With her grip, she passed energy into the young girls arms, making her stronger. As the child got stronger, she was able to force more energy to flow into the blood conduit and back into her. This force caused something to trigger inside of the teen in black and red, making her skin start to turn into the same colors of her outfit. The effects not only caused that, but even gave changes to the bone girl's form. She changed into her big skeletal state, with her bones becoming black, and surrounding herself with a red energy that really popped in her eye sockets. The pain of this change made young Nicole scream. At first she sounded like a child, and then her pained cries turned into a deathly, monstrous roar. The energy left in the blast core went off, and caused an explosion that sent the blood conduit and Nicky flying. Michael and Maria on the other hand were only knocked down from the two girls soaring over them.

The blood conduit was able to rise to her feet, and returned to her original state. As for the little bone conduit, she took a slight bit longer to return to her humanoid form, and was unable to stand. Nicky got up onto her hands and knees looking as if she was about to barf. It was there that she started hearing voices again.

"You feel that energy flowing through you? That's not simply another conduit's energy. Part of that energy in you was once part of a dead man. His power lives on, however. In Cole MacGrath, in Lilith Kūdō, and now Nicole Fisher. Now that you have this power, why don't you deal with Lilith. The blood conduit that attacked your friends." the strange woman's voice said in Nicky's head.

After those words, young Nicole felt the energy flow through rapidly. She not just only got back on her feet, but was able to run straight for the blood conduit. The bloody teen easily noticed her coming her way, so she quickly liquified herself to flow underneath Nicky. This allowed for her to jump up from behind the child and stab her. Before a blow could strike her, Nicky sense of energy went off on its own. She felt all the bones inside Lilith as they came together. It was as if she was touching each of them with her bare hand. As she faced away from Lilith, Nicole lifted her right hand as if holding a small sphere in her palm. This action caused to the blood conduit to levitate about two feet above the bone girl. It took all of a few seconds for the child to realize that she could not only break and fix bones through some form of telekinesis, she could lift them up now.

"What the hell? How are you…? Oww!" Lilith said as some of her bones were twisted.

Nicole broke the blood conduit's legs, causing her to scream in agony, right before the child tossed her to the side of the RV. Nicky figured she was now out of the way, so she ran over towards the psychotic man was being held by the neck. The bone girl saw a huge green figure holding the man up. From the smell though, it was easy for her to distinguish this individual as Rick.

"What are you doing, pissy green giant?" the child asked as stopped some ten feet from him.

"Getting ready to choke the hell out of this bastard for what he did. What does it look like?" Rick answered.

Both Sebastian and Riley got up and ran over to see what was going on.

"Hey Rick. Put that crazy fool down on the ground." Sebastian said.

"Yeah. Put that 'crazy fool' on the ground so I can kill him myself." Riley said as he held a knife in his hand.

Sebastian held him back as he told the teen, "What the hell, man! We need him to spill the beans. He obviously was sent by someone. We need to find out who so we can be ready for something like this again.".

"I don't care what he knows. Zach, Abby and Kirb are dead because of this asshole!" Riley shouted at the rope conduit.

Noticing what those two were fighting about, Nicole thought to herself as to what her next move would be. The man in question did throw a knife at her, and held one up to her friend, Bruce. Along with that, he associate killed the remaining humans in Riley's gang. At the same time though, he could reveal something to the group that none of them may ever have another chance to find out.

* * *

 **L2 Interrogation:**

Force the man tell everything.

 **R2 Execution:**

Have the man killed.

* * *

 **Author's note:**

 **Hey everyone, CAJ here. Hope you're all enjoyin' this story. Gonna have a whole lot more happen soon in this little tale right after you all make this decision, so just you wait until I tally all the votes. Nicky is still at a point where she can go Heroic, Evil, or Something else. And if anyone's curious, yes, still accepting (certain) OCs if you wanna submit one or more. Please make sure when you submit an OC that you follow the info required for characters near the top of my Profile page. Also, I will answer questions left in the reviews publicly in the very bottom of my Profile page. Don't worry, I won't see anything as a stupid question, (until I actually get one). As for me, I'd like you cats out there to answers me this: Was this chapter a little too graphic for a "T" rating? Anyway, PEACE!**


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